


Dreaming Darkly

by Quicksilvermaid



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Auror Harry Potter, Bittersweet, Damaged Harry Potter, Dangerous Draco Malfoy, Darkness, Drug Abuse, Dubious Consent, Insomnia, M/M, Mind Games, Other Lives, Post-War, Sweet Moments, Trauma, graphic nightmares, much swearing, very vague reference to suicide, what if
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-06
Updated: 2019-07-06
Packaged: 2020-05-02 12:45:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 39,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19199098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quicksilvermaid/pseuds/Quicksilvermaid
Summary: It's five years after the war, and Harry is not okay. He hates his job. He hates Robards. He hates Ron's promotions and Hermione's concern.He chases oblivion in booze and weed and quick dirty fucks, but it's never enough.Then Draco Malfoy's face comes up on the case board as a murder suspect and Harry is thrown into an investigation that will take him to dark and dangerous places.The temptations put in front of him will force him to question the line between dreams and reality ... and just which side of that line he wants to walk.





	1. Hunting

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Elle Gray (LGray)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LGray/gifts).



> Thank you to the wonderful Elle for this prompt that grabbed me and wouldn't let go:
> 
> 'Trust in me' - Jungle Book
> 
> _Trust in me, just in me_  
>  _Shut your eyes and trust in me_  
>  _You can sleep safe and sound_  
>  _Knowing I am around_
> 
> _Slip into silent slumber_  
>  _Sailing on a silver mist_  
>  _Slowly and surely your senses_  
>  _Will cease to resist_
> 
> _Trust in me, just in me_  
>  _Shut your eyes and trust in me_
> 
> Elle, I hope you like what I've done with it, and if you don't it's your own fault for hinting at dark and interesting possibilities :p
> 
> So, so many thanks to my wonderful betas and friends who gave me so much cheerleading, support, ideas and typo corrections particularly.  
> Doubleappled, it was an absolute pleasure writing alongside you.  
> Lettersbyelise, Primaveracerezos, andthenshesaid-write and Youngjinsol, thank you so, so much. Hope you enjoy the final product!
> 
> This story is painful but also sweet and hopeful at times. I think the journey is worth the ouch, so I hope you give it a go. 
> 
> Please, mind the tags  
> X

Harry's leg jiggled and he tapped on the edge of the desk with his pen. Because fuck quills. Seriously.  
Robards was droning on and on about the latest updates on all the active cases. Harry tuned him out. What was the point? He gnawed at his lip and glanced at Ron as he thought about their row the night before. His head was still throbbing and he cursed himself for the third time that fortnight for getting plastered and not calling in sick. Who the fuck held a team briefing at seven in the morning anyway?

Ron was sitting on the other side of the room, listening attentively, like the rising Auror he was. Harry forced himself not to glare. It wasn't Ron's fault. He knew it wasn't, but fuck, it pissed him off. He glanced at the Tempus on the wall, mentally calculating how long it would be until he could go outside for a smoke.

He scraped at the desk with a broken and bitten fingernail, thinking about whether he wanted to go out that night. Dean might be up for it. Dean had come out most nights since he and Seamus had broken it off a few months ago. Harry could do with a good lay, even if doing it Polyjuiced into someone else's body always made him feel fucking weird. And if neither him or Dean found someone at the club, well, it wouldn't be the first time they'd come to a mutually beneficial arrangement.

It wasn't until he caught the word 'Malfoy' that Harry jerked his head up, roughly pushing his tangled hair out of his eyes as he focussed on the debrief board beside Robards. At the top left of the board, a headshot that was unmistakably Draco Malfoy had appeared. Malfoy glared out of the image at the assembled Aurors, mouth thin and bitter as his eyes swept across them. He looked - he looked like the past five years had treated him about as well as Harry. His face was thin, gaunt in a way it hadn't been at school. He had dark circles that looked like bruises under his eyes, and his hair was a tangled mess that hung limply to his chin. Most surprising, though, was the scar. It was an angry, twisted thing, running from the corner of his mouth up over his cheek, narrowly missing his eye. Harry wondered, suddenly, how he'd got it - what had happened to him.

 _He was in Azkaban_ , Harry remembered, wondering just when Malfoy had gotten out, and why the hell his mug was on the case board. He focussed in on the details, pulling his eyes away from the photo. Robards had changed the board to show a dingy bar, which Malfoy apparently ran now, as well as three headshots of people who had last been seen there. Harry tried to force his mind past the idea of Malfoy running a bar - Malfoy _working_ \- as he took in the details. The final thing Harry ran his eyes over was a list of substances, all legal, though some questionable, sold in Malfoy's bar. 'Dreaming Darkly.' Harry rolled his eyes; what a pretentious fucking name. 

Then he looked at the head shots again. People were disappearing from that bar. Was Malfoy _murdering_ them? He shied automatically from that thought. Malfoy was many things, but he wasn't a killer. Was he? Harry thought back to sixth year; thought of Katie Bell. Thought of Ron, choking on the floor, foam coming from his mouth.

Harry glanced across at Ron again, feeling that same anger from the night before flaring within him. Ron must have known about this case. It was clearly ongoing and Harry had just missed the previous briefings. Ron hadn't breathed a word to him about it. Not even to have a laugh at Malfoy and the fact that he'd clearly turned out as badly as they'd all known he would.

Harry looked back at the shot of Malfoy, turning his anger on the photo as he watched the way Malfoy lifted his chin, as though daring them all to have a go at him. Still a fucking arrogant twat then. He looked like he thought he was cleverer than all of them. Harry grit his teeth, remembering every single time he'd bested Malfoy and made him eat his words. He - if he was doing that - if he was _killing_ people, he had to be stopped. Harry hadn't won the bloody war to allow that sort of shit to keep happening.

Jeffries moved up to the front of the room and Harry's leg jiggled harder at the thought that he was lead on Malfoy's case. He forced himself to stop. Damn, but he wanted a smoke. Jeffries was an incompetent, trumped-up dickwad and Harry could run rings around him - or he would, if Robards would ever let him actually _do_ anything.  
'Our raid of the suspect's premises two nights ago allowed us to procure samples of Dreamless, Gillyweed, Euphoria, Alihotsy, Billywig, a range of alcohols, and Felix. We're currently investigating Malfoy's permits to brew and sell these substances,' Jeffries said, puffing out his chest in that way he had that made him look like a giant cock. Rooster? No, definitely cock.

'Traces of each have been sampled, and so far we've found no dark remnants or indications that any of the substances are not what they appear.'  
Harry snorted to himself. Of course they hadn't. Malfoy might be a bastard, but he wasn't an idiot. He never had been.  
Robards fixed Harry with a glare from his position at the front of the room and Harry raised an eyebrow at him. What was Robards going to do? Sack him? He'd kept Harry around for the last five years, despite the fact he was a giant liability, couldn't be seen in public without causing an incident, turned up drunk or high once a month on average, and was a PR nightmare - ironic, given that good PR for the Ministry was the reason he'd originally been hired, it turned out.

Robards clenched his jaw and turned back to Jeffries. Harry snorted his disdain, louder this time, and Ron turned, shooting him a quick, worried look before turning his attention back to the front. Harry sat back in his chair, crossing his arms across his chest and ignoring the way his leg started to jiggle again. Fuck, but he hated these briefings. Hated being sidelined month after month.

'We don't believe the raid spooked the suspect, as Dreaming Darkly has remained open the last few nights,' Jeffries was saying while the rest of the room nodded inanely and scribbled notes, ridiculous feathered quills waving in the air. Harry turned his attention back to the photos on the case board. The shot of the bar showed a flickering neon sign, a paint job from the seventies and a façade that screamed dive. Harry met Malfoy's piercing grey eyes as he found his mind returning to just what he was doing running a place like that … and just why the fuck people kept disappearing from it.

\---

Ron came by his office at lunchtime. Harry had been surprised when they gave him the office in his second year, not long out of his training. It had taken him approximately three days to realise that it was a way to keep him quarantined, rather than to reward him. Apparently he was either a) too distracting to the rest of the recruits - though Ron didn't have that problem and he was still splashed across the papers as much as Harry back then. Or b) his 'I don't give a shit' attitude was grating on his supervisors and they were afraid it would rub off on the rest. The Rules at the Ministry were apparently so much more sacrosanct than The Rules of Hogwarts or The Rules of fucking keeping yourself alive while fighting the Dark Lord from ages eleven to seventeen. 

Harry liked to think it had been c) he was more competent than the rest of them put together and they didn't like the reminder of the fact that he was wasting his time sitting on his arse while everyone else got assigned cases.  
But whatever, he'd moved on from that a long time ago. Sometimes he thought he should have moved jobs too. Only what would he have done?  
Plus Ron was here. And he liked working with Ron. Mostly. Except lately, ever since Robards had started whispering things like 'Team Leader' and 'Career Progression' in his ear.

The look on Ron's face was wary, like he didn't know if he was going to get a hello or a hex. Harry felt a grim satisfaction. It wasn't like he'd ever actually hexed Ron, and the row they'd had last night hadn't been any worse than any other. Sure, he'd accused Ron of climbing over the top of him to get in bed with Robards … but for Ron not to have told him about the Malfoy case, that was just low. And he knew it. Harry could see the proof written all over his face.

Harry looked up at his best mate, Auror uniform impeccably buttoned, shoulders square and strong. Ron had filled out in the last few years. He was the very poster-boy of Auror training. Literally; they'd removed Harry from the posters two years ago. Harry resisted glancing down at his own appearance. He knew how he looked beside Ron.  
'Hi,' he said instead.  
'Hi,' Ron replied, something in his stance relaxing a fraction. 'Want to get lunch?' 

Harry wasn't hungry - he was on his fourth coffee of the day - but he knew a peace offering when one was extended. Plus, he needed to know just what Ron knew.  
'Sure,' he said, rising and grabbing his Auror robes from the chair he'd chucked them onto as soon as he'd walked back into his 'office'. He didn't bother buttoning them up. The red and blue pills on the front of his Matrix t-shirt were far more obscure and far less offensive than many he'd worn in the last few years. He kept waiting to be brought up on probation, even some sort of reprimand, but Robards just ground his teeth and looked the other way. His Metallica 'Cunning Stunts' t-shirt was one of his favourites. He liked to watch the vein throb in Robards' forehead when he wore it.

'Caf or Oliver's?' Ron asked as they walked.  
Harry grimaced at the crappy options. The food in the Ministry cafeteria was shit, but if they went to Oliver's, he'd have to Polyjuice first, unless he wanted his face all over fucking _Witch Weekly_ the next day under the heading _Chosen One Chooses Pie: Find Harry's Favourite Pies Within!_ Sometimes he hated Ron and Hermione for the fact that the hype over them had faded after the first few years.  
'Caf,' he grunted. 'But I want a fag first.'

Ron opened his mouth and then closed it again. Harry hunched his shoulders, shoving his hands into his pockets as he raised an eyebrow at Ron in silent challenge. He got enough nagging from Hermione about that particular habit. He didn't need it from Ron again, too.  
Ron just shook his head and they walked to the lifts without speaking and then out into the ground-level courtyard behind the Atrium. He felt something in him ease as they passed through the warded doorway. The lack of Apparition wards in this area was one of the reasons Harry liked it. Just the thought that he could get away if he wanted was soothing some days.

Harry dug his tobacco and papers out of his pocket and rolled one up, licking it quickly. He lit it with the tip of his wand and brought it to his mouth, breathing in deep, feeling the smoke curl through him. He closed his eyes, leaning against the wall, then tilted his head, blowing the smoke out in a continuous stream as he felt his shoulders relax for the first time all morning.

Ron was sitting on one of the picnic tables a few metres away, head cocked to one side as he watched Harry.  
'You don't roll Gillyweed into those, do you?' he asked quietly.  
Harry snorted and took another drag. 'Not my work ones, no.'  
Something on Ron's face didn't settle and Harry offered him the half-finished smoke. 'Wanna check?'

For a moment there was a hint of curiosity in Ron's eyes, like he was remembering the times they used to get stoned together. Those messy times after the war when everything had been fucked up and anything that numbed the pain was welcomed. Then the look faded and Harry remembered Ron had figured out other ways to cope. Good for fucking Ron.  
'Hermione'd kill me,' Ron muttered.  
Harry nodded and took another drag, blowing the smoke back out and thinking about the joint that was waiting for him at home. Maybe he'd get high before he Flooed Dean. He frowned as the thought of Gillyweed made his thoughts circle back to Malfoy's bar again.  
'Do you think Malfoy did it?' he asked, 'Killed those people?' He didn't ask the real question - _Why the fuck didn't you tell me Malfoy was being investigated?_

Ron just shrugged, kicking at the ground. 'It's Jeffries' case, not mine.'  
'Fuck off,' Harry said. 'You must have some idea. You've been to all the briefings after all.' He couldn't help the hint of a sneer that crept into his voice.  
Ron looked across at him and his cheeks flushed with what Harry knew was anger.  
'Don't bloody start that again,' Ron muttered.  
'What?' Harry asked, spreading his hands in a show of innocence and feeling a brief stab of satisfaction as Ron's mouth compressed into a hard line.

'Yes, I was at the briefing when Malfoy's case was first mentioned,' Ron said. 'Because I actually give a shit about my job.'  
Harry rolled his eyes. 'What job? All I fucking do is sit around and get paraded out whenever the Ministry needs the Chosen Face for their Chosen Cause or their Chosen Fucking Message.'  
Ron just sighed and crossed his arms, as though Harry was a petulant child he couldn't be bothered reasoning with.  
Harry felt his jaw clench and he looked away, putting the smoke up to his lips and sucking back until he felt the heat on the ends of his fingers. He flicked it to the ground and stamped it out and then looked back at Ron as he blew the smoke out.

'Since when has he been out of Azkaban, anyway?' Harry asked, torn between wanting Ron to take up on their argument from the night before and wanting to fill in some gaps. He thought of hard grey eyes and Malfoy's lips twisted into a sneer that extended up his face in a scar now.  
Ron shrugged. 'Can't remember exactly when. A few years.'  
Harry narrowed his eyes. 'He was supposed to be in for five. It's only just gone five years since the sentencings.'  
Ron shrugged again. 'Good behaviour or some shit. I don't know. It was back when Kingsley was doing all those Reparation speeches.'

Harry shook his head, casting his mind back. He'd been all over the place back then, but he knew he would have paid attention to Malfoy being released from prison. Surely.  
'I didn't hear about it,' he said, eyeing Ron. He knew his real question was clear. _Why didn't I hear about it?_  
Ron grimaced. 'I think it all happened when you and Gin were in Greece a few years ago.'

Harry winced. Ah. The Breakup Trip. That explained it.  
It was never meant to be a breakup trip. From Ginny's reaction when she found him off his face and on his knees for the bartender at the place next door, she'd been expecting rather the opposite from their holiday.  
Harry had locked himself away for a solid month after he got back from that one. It had taken three months and an intervention from the Ministry before the reporters finally fucked off.

'And no one thought to mention this to me, at any point?' Harry asked, voice reaching a level of disinterest he was proud of. Underneath it, he could feel his anger stir to life.  
Ron sighed again. 'No, we thought of it. We just decided not to.'  
Harry shoved his hands in his pockets as he looked up at Ron from under his fringe. 'And why was that?' he asked, voice harder now. He'd been so sick of the sideways looks, the concerned whispers, the breaks in conversation when he entered the room. But that had stopped ages back. He'd thought it had, anyway.

'Because we knew you'd get like this,' Ron said, gesturing at him and pushing off from the table.  
'Like what?' Harry asked, aware his voice was rising. He clenched his fists inside his pockets as he felt his anger - always so close to the surface - grow.  
'Obsessed,' Ron said flatly. 'We knew you'd get obsessed. Like you always do where he's concerned.'  
Harry glared at him, feeling his anger go from a simmer to a roar. He ignored the way the truth of the words pulled at him. That just made him angrier.  
'You don't get to decide shit for me,' he spat. 'I thought we made that fucking clear a long time ago.'

Ron took a step forward, his own jaw clenching. 'You know what?' he said, his own hands curling into fists for a moment and then relaxing, as he very deliberately forced himself to calm down. 'A whole lot of things are clear to me, lately.'  
The look Ron gave him was angry, but there was a hint of sadness in it that reached out to Harry. That begged him to stop and think. He pushed it away.

'Fuck off to Robards, then,' Harry said, crossing his arms, aware from the look in Ron's eyes that Ron thought he was acting like a child again. That just drove his anger higher. 'You know what, actually. You stay. Fuck this.'

Harry turned away from Ron, grabbed his wand and Apparated from the courtyard.

\----

Harry landed in the alley outside of Cherry Dick's. It wasn't one of his favourite bars - he'd only walked in there for the first time because he and Ron had been wasted and the name of it had made them laugh so much they'd nearly vomited. But it was cheap and Muggle, which meant he didn’t generally have to Polyjuice. Plus, it opened at eleven in the morning, meaning he could pre-game while he waited for one of the clubs he preferred to open.

He didn't bother transfiguring his robes. They were used to seeing him in all sorts of getup. He was pretty sure at this point they thought he was some sort of fantasy cosplay weirdo.  
Harry pushed open the door, the scent of stale beer washing over him, as the blare of the sports channels assaulted his ears. He didn't feel like betting today so he picked a table in the back corner, chucking a handful of notes on the bar and collecting a bottle of whisky and a glass on his way over. That was their one stipulation - that he drink it from a glass.

Harry slumped onto his stool and poured himself a generous splash. He tossed it back, the burn barely registering before he poured again. Then he sat, resting his head on one hand as he scratched aimless patterns into the tabletop with his fingernail.  
Malfoy. Just what the fuck was Malfoy doing running some shady bar? Jeffries would never be able to figure it out. Man was lucky to be able to figure out his buttons on a good day.

Harry sat for a long time, the level of the whisky dropping steadily as he got lost in the swirl of thoughts. When he reached for the bottle and found it empty, Harry looked around himself, blinking slowly. The bar was fuller now, and it was dark outside.  
He glanced at the glowing red numbers on the wall. It was almost ten. He stood and stretched. The room swayed slightly and a feeling of hazy peace flowed through him. He needed a piss. And then maybe he could head over to Edge and pull. It was a Muggle club - he wouldn't need to Polyjuice. Dean be damned. He didn't need Dean to get himself a good fuck.

\----

_Harry could feel the searing heat of the inferno boiling below him, sucking the air from his lungs. The roar of it was a living wall of sound. A beast that promised death and despair. Harry's hands tightened on his broomstick and he leaned forward, feeling the body at his back mirror him, hands gripping him with desperate strength._

_From behind them, he heard a piercing scream and he jerked his head around, heart thudding in his chest as he watched the dragon rise from the ocean of fire. He shouted, hands outstretched as he forced the broom around, but he was too slow. Far, far too slow. The flames rose. The teeth closed and he watched as Hermione disappeared, her scream cutting off abruptly. Harry shouted again, a sound of rage and anguish. Then he felt hands tightening around his waist, like claws, pulling him back to himself, pulling his broom around._

_He leaned forward, unable to see, unable to hear, his mind blank._ Hermione _. Ron was off to one side, speeding forward, Zabini at his back. Ron's face was empty. Lost. He didn't see the chimaera that rose from beneath him. Harry sobbed out a warning. The jaws closed again._

_He could hear a voice at his back, words that didn't make sense._  
_Harry looked over his shoulder. For a moment, he saw Malfoy, face twisted with terror. And then the features changed, Malfoy's eyes burning bright and red; pools of fire. Malfoy opened his mouth impossibly wide, as his whole body caught alight and coiled around Harry, constricting him, burning him._

_Harry felt his skin sear away and he screamed again. Malfoy's fangs sank into his neck and he screamed and screamed at the loss of everything._

Harry sat bolt upright in bed, lungs burning as he gasped for breath. His throat ached and he slumped forward, bringing his knees up as he rested his head on them, hugging his arms around his legs. He was drenched in sweat and shaking from the dream. He could feel the emptiness inside himself where Ron and Hermione used to be.

He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to focus on controlling his breathing, bringing his heart rate back down. It wasn't real. None of it was real. They'd escaped the Fiendfyre. They were alive.  
He could still feel the heat from the inferno, the searing of his own skin as Malfoy wrapped - _Malfoy_. This was his damned fault.

He hadn't had the fire dream in years, and even when he had, Malfoy hadn't been the one killing him. His nightmares were usually about the forest, or the lake, or watching Dumbledore fall into space, green light flowering around him. Now suddenly Malfoy was back, and so was the fire. Harry growled and punched the bed beside himself. He fucking hated the fire. He tried to get the sound of Hermione's ringing screams of terror out of his mind as he carded his fingers through his hair, grimacing at the matted, sweaty mess. Fucking Malfoy.

Harry tried ignore his anger at Malfoy as he reached for his wand to cast a Tempus. He gritted his teeth to keep from swearing as he saw it was three am. He'd only been home two hours. He swung his legs out of bed and put on his glasses and then a pair of joggers and a t-shirt by the dim glow of the streetlight through the window. There was no point trying to sleep again. The brief feeling of relief the whisky and the quick fuck at the club had brought him were long gone. He was lucky to get a solid four hours of sleep on a good night, and he never managed after a nightmare.

He padded out of his room and across the landing into what used to be a formal sitting room, and was now the only other place he really used in this house. He flicked his wand at the lamp as he entered the room, and then at the heating. Damned place was freezing. He swore the chill from the upper rooms sank down through the ceiling every night, as though some malevolent presence lived above him and took its chance when he was asleep to try and reclaim the house. He knew that wasn't true. Hermione herself had warded the upper levels of Grimmauld Place for him. But things that weren't true in the daylight had a way of creeping up on him in the dark.

Harry slumped down onto the couch, pulling the thick knitted blanket around him. It had been a present from Molly. He was pretty sure it had been supposed to adorn his and Ginny's wedding bed. Whatever. It was warm. He scooped the remote out from under one of the cushions and flicked the telly on, then the Playstation, finding his controller underneath a shirt that smelled like it should have been washed a few weeks ago. He threw it towards the door and booted Crash Bandicoot up. If he had to be awake, he may as well do something useful with his time. He'd been stuck on a level full of shitty sideways jumps all week.

He played until the sun came up - resolutely keeping thoughts of Malfoy and his resulting anger out of his mind - then showered and went in to work. Ron didn't visit his office, but then Harry hadn't been expecting him to. There were probably all sorts of Important Tasks Ron had to do. 

Harry spent the day in archives, ignoring the strange looks he was getting for case research he hadn’t done in years.  
By the end of the day, he had a duplicate of all of the information collected in Malfoy's case.

By the end of the night, he knew exactly what he was going to do about it.


	2. Dreaming

Harry swallowed the Polyjuice, closing his eyes and breathing slowly to avoid retching the lot of it back up. He tried to focus on something else - anything to avoid thinking about the way his bones twisted and lengthened, the way his features melted and blurred. Fuck, he hated Polyjuice.

When it was over, he opened his eyes and looked at his new self in the mirror. Staring back at him was a middle-aged man with watery blue eyes, a receding hairline, a paunch, and a permanently disaffected look on his face. Harry could never remember if that was the man's expression or just the one he wore when he had to wear this body. He scowled at his reflection.  
'Hello, Edgar,' he muttered, grimacing as his voice came out in the familiar rasping croak. Harry had a feeling Edgar was on his way to an early death from lung cancer. But that wasn't his problem. The man was assigned to Harry's twelve hour potion and he looked just the part to attend a seedy bar late at night.

Harry pulled the blue rain jacket on over the checked shirt and woollen vest Edgar always wore, then he tucked his wand in his pocket and headed outside for the taxi he'd called earlier.

Malfoy's bar wasn't hard to find. He'd placed it on the border between magical and Muggle London. Harry wondered, as he climbed out of the taxi, throwing the driver twice what his trip had been worth, whether Malfoy's clients came from both worlds as well. Those who had disappeared - those they knew of - were all wizards. The idea that Malfoy could be using his bar to lure Muggles to their death - to keep the same Death Eater ideology alive - sent a wave of hot anger through him. 

He'd done some research earlier that day into Malfoy's pardon as well - the idea that he was out for good behaviour was ludicrous. Malfoy wouldn't know good behaviour if it bit him on the arse. No, Harry would be willing to bet the Malfoy fortune had a lot more to do with it. That idea just made him even angrier - the thought that people like the Malfoys could buy their way out of - or into - whatever they wanted. People had to pay for their crimes - had to pay with something meaningful, not just pull money from an inexhaustible supply.

Harry shook himself, trying to focus. He'd been all over the place since he'd seen Malfoy's head shot the day before. Something about Malfoy's eyes just wouldn't leave his mind. He wished for a moment he'd dug a joint out before he took the taxi, just to settle his nerves. It had been a long time since he'd been in the field, since the early days where active cases had been destroyed by rushing fans wanting a piece of the Saviour - since he'd misjudged his Polyjuice and transformed part way through a raid, leaving Jeffries undefended to take a hex that had him in Mungo's for months. Harry took a deep breath, shaking his head and focussing on what he could see, trying to ground himself.

The bar looked even more pathetic up close. The neon sign buzzed and flicked intermittently. The rest of the street was dark and quiet around it, and Harry couldn't hear the thumping of bass he was used to from venues this late at night. He glanced around, seeing no signs of surveillance on the place. That was what Jeffries had said: they hadn't wanted to tip Malfoy off that the raid a few days before had been anything more than a standard stock check. 

Harry walked towards the entrance, pushing the wooden door open and pausing for a moment as he took in the interior. The place was worse on the inside, if that was possible. He felt a small and vicious glow of satisfaction, that Malfoy had been reduced to this - that the uptight, perfectly groomed pureblood heir now ran a place Harry wouldn't piss on if it was on fire.

The carpet was a murky grey. The original colour looked like it had been lost beneath years of grime. The few bar stools were chipped and mismatched and the fluorescent lighting was a dull yellow so dim that Harry had to squint to make out the details of the room. It was small; there were a few booths around the edges, against the blacked-out front window, and a bar on the other side of the room, bottles racked up, colours swirling slowly and enticingly in them. Harry felt his attention caught by the only part of the room that didn't give the impression of being completely neglected.

He stepped towards the glowing bottles, looking around the empty bar, wondering if Jeffries had been wrong and Malfoy actually had closed the place up. But then a door on the other side of the room banged open and a skeletal figure stalked in.   
Harry froze, eyes widening as he took in Malfoy's presence - the tattered black robes, the lank, stringy hair. Above all, his attention was drawn by the thick red scar that sliced across Malfoy's face. He looked nothing like the boy Harry remembered. Harry had known that, academically, from the photo, but now, to see Malfoy in person made Harry feel unaccountably off balance. He didn't like the feeling. He pushed back against it, searching wildly for something to hold on to.

'What the fuck happened to you?' Harry blurted, flushing and cursing himself almost immediately as he realised his mistake. But Malfoy just scowled, as though he were asked that question often. Taking in the way Malfoy looked again, Harry thought maybe he was. Malfoy leaned forward to put his hands on the bar as he stared across it at Harry.  
'What do you want?' Malfoy asked, his eyes hard.  
Harry felt his anger spark again in response to Malfoy's dismissive tone and he shook himself mentally. He had a job to do. He was here to find out what the hell Malfoy was up to. Here, if he was honest with himself, to prove he could do this work. And he didn't need a whole team breathing down his neck to prove that to. He could do this by himself. He'd always worked best alone.

'A drink,' he said, gesturing at the bar as though that was obvious and Malfoy was particularly thick. Edgar wasn't usually a dick, but Harry couldn't quite help himself. It was like something about seeing Malfoy standing in front of him - no matter how changed he was - brought out that need to push Malfoy's buttons - to get a rise out of him.   
Malfoy grunted, but didn't say anything more. Harry narrowed his eyes slightly before forcing a smile onto Edgar's face.

He moved forward, seating himself on one of the barstools, unbothered by the way his trousers stuck to it in places. He'd had worse. 'I'm Edgar Martin,' he said, extending a hand.  
Malfoy stayed silent, watching him, making no move to take his hand.   
'Not one for hospitality, are you?' Harry said, dropping his hand when the silence had stretched for so long it became uncomfortable. A part of him wanted to force Malfoy to respond - to just shake him until he got the answers he wanted. He was still having trouble reconciling the man in front of him with the Malfoy he knew. It wasn't only his looks that were different. He gave off an aura of danger now that he never had before. Everything about him screamed at Harry to be careful. He ignored it.

Malfoy's mouth hardened. 'I'm not here to be hospitable. I'm here to sell drinks. You want a drink, you pick one.'  
Harry barely refrained from rolling his eyes and telling Malfoy to go fuck himself. Maybe Malfoy wasn't so different after all. Harry turned his gaze to the selection of drinks behind Malfoy. He could see a number of Muggle spirits on the lowest shelf, with wizarding liquors sitting above them and on the top shelf a row of potions swirling and bubbling. There was a faint haze around them that made Harry suspect they were disillusioned. Harry's eye was caught by a glowing yellow vial, spitting and bubbling merrily.

'I'll have a shot of Felix,' he said. Malfoy's eyes narrowed but he turned to reach for the bottle. The sleeve of his robe fell down as he did and Harry hissed in a breath as he saw Malfoy's forearm. His Mark was still there, but it was faint, obscured by more angry red scars, the same as the one on his face.  
'You have a Dark Mark,' Harry said, wondering as it came out of his mouth what he was trying to do with that statement. Malfoy was hardly likely to take Edgar into his confidence after twenty seconds of conversation. He felt his anger growing, but it was directed at himself this time. He tried to push it away. He could do this. He knew he could. The only reason he hadn't got any breaks was because Robards was a twat and was holding him back. He could do this.

Malfoy poured the shot and sat it down in front of him, on the stained bar top.  
'Three hundred fifty Galleons,' he said, completely ignoring Harry's comment. Harry considered pushing the point, wanting to see how Malfoy would respond, but he couldn't afford to get him off side if he wanted to find out what was going on.  
After a moment, Harry noticed Malfoy was staring at him, one eyebrow raised in challenge and he realised for the first time that he may have made a mistake wearing Edgar tonight. Edgar did not look like a man who ordered three hundred and fifty Galleon shots.

Harry shrugged mentally. He was here now. He could do this.  
He reached into his pocket, pulling out his transfer coin and touching it to the Gringotts symbol beside the register as he thought about how much he wanted to move.  
The symbol glowed green for a moment and Malfoy crossed his arms, his stare never leaving Harry's face.

Harry pocketed his coin and picked up his shot, downing it in a practiced motion. It tasted of light and sunshine and possibility and he felt the glow of it spread through him almost instantly. The headache sitting behind his eyes - the one that was there so constantly he barely registered it anymore - faded away to nothing. He felt his anger fade as well, damping down and slipping into the background. His anger wasn't important now. The only thing that was important was the answers he needed. And he could get them. He suddenly had supreme confidence that he could get them. He could do anything he wanted - the path was mapped out before him. Harry smiled broadly.

'Do you want anything else?' Malfoy asked, disinterest in his voice.  
Harry hesitated. _Leave_ , Felix whispered in his mind. He resisted the pull for just a moment until the overwhelming rightness of the suggestion overtook him.  
'No, that's all,' he said, slipping off the stool and giving a bit of a wave as he walked towards the exit.  
As he reached the door, Harry glanced over his shoulder. Malfoy was still standing behind the bar, arms crossed as he stared at Harry's departing form. Harry turned away, smile still on his face. He would have to get some Felix for home. It was pricey but oh, so worth it. Harry hadn't felt this good in a long time.

He stepped outside and turned left, beginning to walk. After a minute, Felix whispered to him again. _Wait_.  
Harry leaned against the building, the street dark around him. He slid his hand into his pocket and gripped his wand, casting a disillusionment charm on himself.

It was a while before he saw what he had been waiting for, but it felt like an instant, inside the golden bubble of the potion. A man was hurrying down the street towards him. He had his hands shoved in his pockets and his shoulders were hunched. He was thin and looked driven, as though all his focus was on where he was going. Harry reached out with his mind, gently brushing against the other man's. He'd finally learned to shield in his second year of training and he'd learned a passable legilimency to go with it.  
He wouldn't have needed to be more than passable to pick up the man's thoughts. His mind screamed with his need. There was just one thought in it - the image of the peeling door Harry had seen Malfoy enter from.

Felix surged within Harry and suddenly he knew what he needed to do as clearly as though it had been shouted to him. He drew his wand and sent a Stupefy at the man, then a cushioning charm as he fell to the ground.  
Harry worked slowly and methodically, Felix letting him know he had all the time in the world. He rolled the man against the building and disillusioned his unconscious form. Then he transfigured Edgar's clothes into a reasonable imitation of what the other man had been wearing and withdrew a vial from his own pocket. 

Harry took a deep breath and dropped the hair inside. This was only a two hour batch, but it was cleared for use with random samples.  
He felt nausea rise as his form shifted again, the weight dropping off him, his hands curling into claws as pain ratcheted through them. He felt the same pain through his back, which only let up slightly as he bent forward, imitating the posture of the man as he'd hurried along.

Harry took another deep breath, feeling Felix flowing through his blood, calming and soothing him, telling him it was going to be alright. Harry nodded to himself and then set off down the street, imitating the same bent shuffle he'd see the man take on.  
When he entered the room again, he didn't pause; he moved straight towards the door near the bar, the golden warmth pulling him to it, reassuring him that he was right.   
He stood in front of it for a moment, mind racing. Jeffries had been here. He would have checked all the rooms. Man blundered like no other. So what was behind the door?

_Higher_ , Felix whispered to him, and Harry looked up to see the symbol of a dragon etched into the wood of the frame. It was almost indistinct among the faded green paintwork.   
He reached up, wincing in pain as he forced his body to straighten and his fingers to brush the symbol. The Felix inside him leapt for joy, bubbling inside his chest in its pleasure at finding the answer.  
The air in front of him seemed to shimmer for a moment and then the door solidified again and Harry pushed it open. 

He stepped inside and blinked, looking around. The air was hazy with smoke, the room dimly lit with flickering torches. Harry could smell the bitter tang of Gillyweed and he breathed it in almost automatically, feeling his head swim with it. This room was larger than the one outside. All around the edge were alcoves, and Harry could see people stretched out in them, their forms indistinct within the swirling smoke. Through the centre of the room were spread stretcher beds, many occupied by still forms as well, some staring vacantly with open eyes, others slack-jawed, arms and legs splayed.

Harry was lost for a moment, trying to take it all in, but then Malfoy was there, appearing beside him and wrapping an arm around his shoulder. Harry flinched at his sudden appearance, but Malfoy just hushed him.  
'It's alright, Victor,' Malfoy said softly, 'You're here now. Come and lie down and we'll have you back with Annabelle in no time.'  
Harry let himself be led forward as his mind raced, trying to make sense of what he was seeing, what Malfoy was saying - why he was suddenly so gentle where before he had been hard and cold.

Harry looked around the room at the dozens of people seemingly lost in sleep and suddenly the name of the bar started to make sinister sense. He considered leaving - had he seen enough? Was this enough evidence to take back to Robards? But he still didn't know what Malfoy was actually _doing_.  
 _Trust_ , Felix whispered and Harry nodded and drew in another deep breath. He felt his head spin and he began to feel dazed, as though he were floating above himself, wrapped in a bubble of calm.

Malfoy led him between the beds, the hand that wasn't around Harry's shoulders trailing across the sleeping forms in a strange caress. Malfoy's eyelids fluttered as he touched each one, just for a moment. Harry felt concern stirring within him, but the smoke in his lungs and the gold in his blood pushed it back down, reassuring him that everything was fine, and that letting go would be so much easier than thinking.

Harry sat automatically on the stretcher Malfoy guided him to and took the bottle that was pressed into his hand. He glanced down at it and recognised the dark purple of Dreamless Sleep.   
'There you go,' Malfoy was saying again, as he crouched in front of Harry. 'We can do the park again if you like? The birthday, when she was seven and you rode the merry-go-round for hours?'

Harry nodded, looking into Malfoy's grey eyes, which suddenly seemed so much larger than they had. So much darker.  
Something deep within him - some survival instinct - shrilled out a warning. This was not right. This was dangerous.   
'We'll just pay the fee right up and then you can sleep. Then you'll have what you need,' Malfoy was saying. Harry forced himself to concentrate. He had coin. There was coin in his pocket. He couldn't let Malfoy see his transfer chip again.

He dipped his hand in, pulling out a money bag, which he handed to Malfoy. Malfoy cocked his head for a moment, as though considering something strange, and Harry felt the worry begin to rise again. How did Victor normally pay? What was the fee? What was he paying for?  
 _Speak_ , Felix prompted him. Harry thought frantically. Malfoy had mentioned a girl, Annabelle.  
'Soon?' Harry asked. 'I can see her soon?'  
Malfoy seemed to relax at his words and he glanced down at the coins in his hands, beginning to count them out from Harry's pouch. 'Of course, Victor. Soon.' Something in Malfoy's smile tightened and Harry felt a prickle of discomfort to see it. Malfoy looked back down at the coins and after a minute, he handed back Harry's pouch almost empty and Harry looked down at the bottle in his hand again. 

He could feel the smoke in his mind. He could feel himself floating, his worries getting harder to hear. Felix was there too.  
 _Drink_ , Felix whispered. Harry knew that was a bad idea. Knew it was crazy. No one knew he was here. He would be making himself vulnerable to Malfoy. He'd be asleep. Harry glanced around the room - he'd be asleep with a dozen others while Malfoy walked among them. He hadn't seen Malfoy in years; had no idea who he'd become.  
 _Drink_ , Felix urged. Harry wavered. Something in him told him to trust the seductive voice, told him maybe it knew things he didn't.

Harry thought of Slughorn's memory all those years ago. He thought of how the Felix flowed through him, making him feel light in a way he couldn't remember feeling in so, so long. He breathed in the smoke again and felt his tiredness sink into his bones. He thought of how St Mungo's had banned him from Dreamless after he'd needed three bottles a night to keep the nightmares at bay. Harry was pretty sure Hermione still cast a seeking spell for it on the rare occasions she visited.  
 _Drink_ , Felix said quietly.  
Harry thought of why he was here - what he wanted to prove - what he needed evidence to be able to prove. He couldn't stop now.

Harry looked into Draco Malfoy's eyes, then he screwed up his courage, uncorked the bottle and swallowed its contents down. He felt the milky taste wash over his tongue and the effects spread through his body almost instantly. His head sagged forward and Malfoy caught him, murmuring quiet words as he laid Harry back on the stretcher, arranging his arms and legs comfortably. Harry spared another thought for how strange it was to have Malfoy touching him with something that wasn't a fist, or a boot.

Then he let his eyes drift shut. The last thing he felt before darkness took him was fingers, brushing lightly over his forehead, moving his hair off his face.  
No, not _his_ hair, he thought fuzzily, fighting the sleep that was dragging him down. His last thought was that it had been such a long time since someone had touched him so gently.

\------

Harry felt like he was floating in darkness, aware, yet … unaware. He had no idea where he was, but somehow he didn't feel concerned. He felt safe, comforted, as though someone was watching over him.

Then the feeling of being watched became sharper, as though there were actual eyes on him. Harry spun around in the darkness, or thought he did. He couldn't tell. He couldn't feel his body at all.   
He heard laughter, echoing through the darkness. It had an incredulous note to it.  
'Who's there?' he called.  
The laughter sounded again - it had a harder edge this time, colder - and then came the quiet words. 'Oh, Potter.' Harry recognised Malfoy's voice and he tried to make out some sort of detail in the absolute darkness surrounding him.   
'Only you could be so monumentally stupid,' Malfoy continued, voice hard and flat. Harry felt a spark of fear and he span around again, trying to find Malfoy in the darkness.  
Malfoy's voice had an edge of cruelty when he spoke. 'Let's have some fun, shall we?'

Suddenly there was light everywhere, a riot of movement and flickering colour. Flashes of familiar faces and places unspooled around him, almost too quickly to focus on. He saw Hogwarts. Work. The Burrow. Grimmauld. Privet Drive. Small and dark - his cupboard. Ron. Ginny. Molly. Teddy. Hermione. Vernon's face, red with rage. They moved faster and faster around him. Snatches of sound and garbled half-words bursting into life. 

It was like being ripped through a series of Pensieve memories more quickly than he could focus. _Memories_. Harry felt his thoughts sharpen as anger flared to life. These were his memories. Malfoy was in his head.

Harry tried to push back, to put up his walls. The comforting protection of the Felix was gone and Harry felt lost without it. He tried to remember the control he needed to keep Malfoy out - to close his mind and keep him away. He pulled his anger around him, flaring it brighter and trying to use the strength of it to force Malfoy out of his mind, but the Dreamless Sleep running through his blood made his magic slow and weak.  
Malfoy tutted at him scoldingly, his voice somehow coming from nowhere and everywhere. 'Now, now, Potter. None of that. You're in my world now, and I make the rules here.'

The movement started again. Harry could feel Malfoy's touch inside his mind, now that he knew it was there. He could feel Malfoy's fingers rifling through thoughts, memories, nightmares. He could feel where Malfoy lingered and what he dismissed. Harry wanted to feel revolted, outraged. He wanted to turn Malfoy out, to rip him from his mind, but he was helpless, held by the potion and by the effortless power Malfoy wielded as he sifted and sorted.

The flickering stream of images and sounds slowed in its frantic pace, and that was somehow worse. Harry could make out details now, see scenes replaying around him. But it was more than just watching them, he realised with a shock. It was different to a Pensieve. He was _in_ them. He was himself. Not watching himself, but feeling how he had, remembering what he'd thought at that time.

The first memory Malfoy held him in for more than a few seconds was from the night before. Harry flushed at the feeling of being pushed against the grimy cubicle wall face first as the man behind him ground into his arse, pulling out in a smooth slide that had him groaning, just the way he had last night. It felt so good. So real. Harry's fingers curled against the wall as he glanced around, searching for anything to tell him this wasn't real, that this was just a memory.

He looked to one side, pressing his hips back helplessly, as the man behind him gripped him harder - fucked him deeper.  
Harry froze as he saw Malfoy standing in the doorway of the toilet, leaning against the wall, arms crossed as he watched Harry with a raised eyebrow. He looked nothing like he had in the real world. His scars were gone and he looked healthy, dressed in tight jeans and an open necked shirt. His hair was cut short on the sides and tousled on top and he looked sexy as fuck. He looked like he was out to pull - like he belonged here.

The man behind Harry fucked hard into him again and Harry gasped, wrenching himself away. This wasn't - Malfoy couldn't -  
The scene shimmered around them like smoke and faded as Harry fought against Malfoy watching him like this.  
The last thing to fade was Malfoy's eyes, bright and silver and full of mockery in the darkness.

'You don't want that sort of fun, Potter?' Malfoy asked, his voice a whisper in Harry's ear. Harry spun around again, but there was no one there, only the darkness.  
'That's fine,' Malfoy said, and then another scene unravelled around him.  
Harry watched it come to life with mounting dread as the murky depths became clearer.

He shook his head, feeling the cold water of the Lake engulf him, the pressure of the depths constrict his chest. He shook his head again. _No. No no no no_.  
He looked around wildly, thrashing arms and legs. He looked down to see they were flippered and then he was possessed by an urge to move - to swim. It was as though he was pulled by an invisible force - made to act out what was to come. Harry tried to fight against it, but then he was in front of the pillars. He could see the bodies hanging in the water, lifeless.

He floated there, watching them for a moment, casting about, trying to figure out if this was his memory or his dream. But then Hermione opened her eyes and began to scream, bubbles of air escaping her, floating to the surface far above in her panic. Harry poured all of his energy into speeding to her as he ceased to wonder. This was his nightmare. This was -

Ron opened his eyes as well in the murky depths. He reached for Harry, panic on his face. Harry pulled out his wand and shot spells at the rope. Gabrielle woke next, then Cho. Harry freed them all, looking frantically to Hermione. She was kicking, struggling towards the surface, but it was so far above them and her robes were dragging her down. She'd lost so much air.  
Harry screamed, trying to gather them all, trying to bring them to safety, to the surface, already knowing he would fail, knowing he would watch them die again.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a flash of brightness - something he'd never seen before. He whipped his head around and froze as he saw Malfoy floating in the water, his hair a halo around him, his tail flicking lazily as he held himself in place, watching Harry. Harry made to swim towards him, but then his focus was wrenched back to Hermione, to Ron's frantic struggles, to Gabrielle's still form. He screamed again, the sound muffled by the vastness of the Lake.

Harry glanced at Malfoy and saw him reach out, grip his fingers into nothing and _pull_.

A second later and the Lake was gone. Harry felt the complete absence of the water, as though it had never been. He was just left with his terror and anguish.  
'Well that was exceedingly unpleasant,' Malfoy drawled. 'And you have so many of them. Your mind is full of them. The war's over, Potter. Didn't you know?'  
'Fuck you, Malfoy,' Harry snarled, finding his voice at last. It echoed strangely in the emptiness. 'Let me go. Let me out of this.' He spun again and again in the darkness, searching for some sign of Malfoy - some way out. 

'I don't think so, Potter,' Malfoy said, and his voice was cold again. 'Let's have a little look at why you're here, shall we?'  
The Ministry came to life in front of him. Harry looked down to see himself dressed in a pair of ripped jeans, his scuffed trainers and his Matrix t-shirt. His Auror robes were unbuttoned and hanging loose and he got a few odd looks as guests came to and fro across the Atrium floor, checking into various areas for the day.

Harry barely refrained from giving them the finger, and that was only because his head was still throbbing from the night before and he thought he might vomit if he moved too quickly.  
He caught a set of eyes on himself, eyes that lingered and he glanced across to see Malfoy standing near the reception desk, his hair long and straight, gleaming brightly, his robes a deep, expensive blue. Malfoy's smile was enigmatic and Harry scowled, moving towards him, determined to have this out. Fucking Malfoy couldn't keep jerking him from one memory to another.

Halfway there, the scene shifted and Harry crashed into his chair. He looked up. He was in the briefing room. Malfoy's face was on the board in front of him. He felt himself shift fully back into the memory.

_He was in Azkaban_ , Harry remembered, wondering just when Malfoy had gotten out, and why the hell his mug was on the case board. He focussed in on the details, forcing his eyes away from the photo. Robards had changed the board to show a dingy bar, which Malfoy apparently ran now, as well as three headshots of people who had last been seen there. He ran his eyes over a list of substances, all legal, though some questionable, sold in Malfoy's bar. 'Dreaming Darkly.' Harry rolled his eyes; what a pretentious fucking name. 

There was a quiet laugh from off to his left and Harry jerked his head around to see Malfoy sitting in the chair behind Ron, leaning it back on two legs. He wore Auror robes that were buttoned sharply and his hair was shaved close to his skull.  
'So this is why I was raided, Potter?' Malfoy said, face darkening though his tone was still light. No one else in the room seemed to hear him. Jeffries was up the front now, droning on.

Malfoy stood and walked towards Harry, putting both his hands on the desk in front of him and leaning down. 'Though it doesn't explain what _you're_ doing here.' Malfoy's gaze was implacable and Harry closed his eyes as he felt Malfoy's fingers in his mind again, shifting and sorting. Then he was drinking. Smoking. Gaming. Checking the archives and thinking. Always thinking about Malfoy.  
Somehow Harry could feel the moment Malfoy understood the situation - his satisfaction, laced with annoyance, as he realised Harry had acted alone, that no one knew where he was.

The memories stopped and Harry was strung out, high. Alone. He'd meant to do something. Be somewhere. He looked across at the silver-wrapped box on the table.  
 _Ah, Hermione's birthday._  
Suddenly it seemed funny, that he was here, at home. So fucking funny. He giggled, throwing his head back and letting the sound flow from him into the air. He imagined little silver bubbles of laughter popping out of his mouth and the idea made him laugh even harder. Then two floated down towards him, hovering right in front of his face.

But they were Malfoy's eyes, not bubbles. There was no face. Just eyes. Watching him. Judging him.  
'You've got a right shit life, haven't you, Potter?' There was a pause, and then Malfoy's voice was back, a tone in it he hadn't heard before. It was slow, deep, almost hypnotic. 'I could make it all better, you know? I could make all that go away, so, so easily, for the right price.' Harry tried to ignore the spike of interest that rose at those words, at the idea that something - anything - could make it better.  
'You'd just have to trust,' Malfoy continued in that same deep, mesmerising tone. He sounded like he was standing right behind Harry and Harry fought the urge to turn. 'Just shut your eyes, and trust.'  
The final word was like a hiss in his ear as another memory shimmered to life in front of him.

Ron and Hermione sat either side of him in the musty tent. They watched a blue flame flicker and glow in a jar on the table as Ron spoke, telling a story he'd heard on Potterwatch while he'd been gone. The blue flame didn't do much to light up the tent, but it was enough. Harry could feel the warmth of his friends' bodies pressing lightly against his.  
It was the first time in weeks he'd felt balanced. Ron was back. Things could go back to normal now.  
'… and then Ginny apparently charmed the suits of armour to issue bat bogey hexes. And Snape copped one, right in the face. Can you imagine it?' Ron snorted and Harry pictured it, bats flying uncontrollably from Snape's pointy face.

He let out a laugh. Just a small one. Then he heard Hermione giggle beside him. Then Ron laughed again, and then he lost it. The laughter pulled itself out of him in a loud stream. Hermione and Ron both looked at him in surprise and then they laughed harder as well. Harry couldn't help himself. He held his sides and let the laughter come free. He couldn't remember the last time he'd laughed. The last time anything had cut through the fog of misery and despair.

Ron and Hermione flopped backwards onto the bed and Harry looked over his shoulder at the two of them. They were both still laughing softly, looking into each others eyes. Harry abruptly felt his own laughter dry up in his throat and he turned back around to look at the tiny, flickering blue flame.

The Malfoy's voice was in his mind again. 'No? They hurt you even in memory? How about this, then?'  
Harry tried to grasp the memory, to touch it, to pull it close. That moment might just have been the last time he was truly happy, but Malfoy pulled it through his fingers with ease, spinning him into another dream.

Harry stepped down from the Hogwarts Express, pulling his case behind him. The platform was crowded with families welcoming their children back after another year. He steadied Hedwig's cage and waved to Ron and Hermione as they set off to find their families. Then he looked around the crowd, scanning for familiar faces. Flashes of bright blond hair caught his eyes, but he ignored the Malfoy family reunion.  
 _Where were they? They hadn't been late once in the last five years._  
Then his eye caught and he grinned, hurrying through the crowd.

Harry's dad stepped forward, strong arms wrapping around him and bringing him close for a hug. Harry hugged him back, despite feeling he was getting a touch old for this. Then his dad clapped him on the back.  
'It's good to see you, champ,' he said, as he released Harry and stepped back.  
Harry turned to his mum and for a second he came back to himself. He looked into her green eyes and saw himself, remembered that none of this was real, that it was a fantasy. His parents were dead. They were -

Then his mum stepped forward with a smile and wrapped her arms around him. She was warm and soft and smelled like something he'd long ago forgotten. Harry closed his eyes and hugged her close.


	3. Falling

When Harry woke he had no idea how much time had passed. He came slowly out of the dream. Dad had been cooking dinner, nagging him to hurry up unpacking his school gear so they could have a fly before it got dark. He wanted to burrow back down into the dream - pull it tight to himself and never let it go. It had felt so vivid - so real.

He sat up slowly, blinking in the hazy light of the torches through the smoke. When he finally managed to focus his eyes, he sat up straighter. Malfoy was leaning on the wall near the entrance, arms crossed, staring at Harry with a narrow-eyed gaze. He looked nothing like he had in the dreams - he didn't look young, fresh-faced and clean. Instead he looked like he'd been hard-used for years and expected nothing better from the future.  
Harry stood from the cot, moving stiffly, still not feeling quite right in his own body. He noted some of the beds were empty now and others contained forms he didn't think he'd seen on the way in.

He stopped in front of Malfoy, whose eyes flicked up and down him.  
'You look like shit.'  
Harry glanced down to see he was wearing his own form now. The Polyjuice must have worn off while he was dreaming. He felt a spark of anger kindle within him. Malfoy had - Malfoy had invaded his mind. Sifted through his memories. His thoughts. A flush of shame followed the anger, almost drowning it, but he forced it away. He knew what Malfoy had seen - Gods, the things that were wrong inside his head were innumerable, and to think that Malfoy, of all people, had seen that. The anger flickered back to life. Malfoy had had _no_ right -  
Harry reached for his wand and came up short.

Malfoy raised an eyebrow at him.  
'Where's my wand?' Harry said, his voice hard.  
Malfoy raised one shoulder in a half-shrug. 'You can have it back when we've … talked.'  
Harry clenched his hands into fists and considered punching Malfoy in the face. Slimy git. Who knew what else he had done while Harry had been asleep. He forced himself to take a deep breath and pull his temper in. He had to get his wand and get out of here.

'Fine,' he said. 'Talk.'  
Malfoy took a step to the side and opened the door, showing Harry out into the bar. Harry took one more look around the room, wondering for a second what was happening inside the heads of the men and women lying there, then he stepped outside and into the bar, the smoke abruptly clearing.  
Malfoy gestured him to a barstool, but Harry remained standing, crossing his arms.

'You won't tell anyone,' Malfoy said and it was very much a statement, not a request.  
Harry felt like laughing in Malfoy's face. The first thing he would do when he left here would be to Apparate to the Ministry and call Robards in. The Aurors had to know the sick games Malfoy was playing with people.  
Malfoy seemed almost to read his thoughts. A slow smile spread across his face.

'Does your ginger mother know just what a fuck-up you are?' he asked. Harry's thoughts came to a halt as he eyed Malfoy. 'Does the Weasel know just how much you wish he was back beneath you, like he should be, following in your footsteps?'  
Harry took a step forward, fists clenching again.  
'No? What about your bosses? What would they do with proof sent straight to the Minister that you're a danger to yourself and everyone around you?'

'What the fuck are you talking about?' Harry growled, taking another step closer.  
Malfoy narrowed his eyes and stood up straighter. He towered over Harry by a good few inches and Harry hated having to look up at him.  
'I've been inside your head, Potter,' Malfoy said, voice low and grim. 'I could pull your memories from my mind as easily as my own now.'  
Harry sucked in a sharp breath, shaking his head. _No. That was unheard of. No one could -_

'You won't tell anyone,' Malfoy repeated. 'Or I'll spread your pathetic, fucked-up life as far as I possibly can, and do as much damage as I can with it.'  
Malfoy glared down at Harry. He didn't bother asking if Harry believed him. The truth of his words was written in his implacable stare.

'You wouldn't dare,' Harry said, trying to call his bluff.  
Malfoy's eyes went dark. 'You have no idea what I would dare.'  
Harry suppressed a shiver at the look on his face.  
'Get out,' Malfoy said. 'I'll owl you your wand. By the time you get home I will have made copies of your worst memories, addressed them to your family, your boss and the papers and set plans that they should be released if I'm arrested.'

Harry considered fighting back, considered rushing Malfoy, but he couldn't imagine a situation in which he could be successful. Instead he glared at Malfoy.  
'You're a fucking piece of work, you know that?'  
Malfoy just looked down at him, completely unmoved.  
Harry gritted his teeth and pushed past Malfoy, striding out of the bar and cursing the fact he'd ever come in.

\----

It was four in the morning when Harry finally got home. He lit a fag and sat in the kitchen with his hands wrapped around a cup of coffee as he tried to force his exhausted brain to work. He felt like he'd lived a lifetime in the past few hours - felt like moments he'd forgotten had been pushed back into his mind.  
He closed his eyes and let his head hang down. For a moment he thought he felt the ghost of a comforting arm on his shoulder, and he swallowed against the lump in his throat. They had been so real.

He wavered between wanting to rush to the Ministry to report all of the events of the night and feeling fear and guilt over what would happen if his memories were shared. Even Ron and Hermione didn't know the worst of what went on in his head nowadays. They were always so busy. The three of them didn't see each other as much as they used to, and usually when they were out, Harry had switched on his party mode - or had drunk and smoked enough to force himself into it - and was happy to talk and dance and laugh.  
Ron knew he was having trouble at work, of course, but he just thought Harry was stuck in the past and needed to get the chip off his shoulder. He didn't know Harry's greatest fear - his concern that he couldn't do this. Any of it. That he had peaked. That maybe, after all, he shouldn't have come back from that bright white place.

At six - half a dozen rollies and three cups of coffee later - an owl tapped against his window. His wand was deposited on the bench as soon as he opened it and the owl took flight back out the open window immediately. Harry picked up his wand, cradling it in his fingers as he watched the bird fly away. He was still undecided as he showered and dressed for work.

He went through the day mechanically, aware of everything around him but not a part of any of it. He could feel that sick, headachy feeling building in him again, like he wasn't right in his own skin. He felt at the same time like he wanted to fall into a heap and sleep, and like he would never sleep again. He tugged at his hair in frustration. He felt like his insomnia had been taken and amplified; he wondered whether Malfoy had done something to him.

He looked around himself constantly, eyeing people, wondering what they would do with his memories - his thoughts. Wondering how it would feel to let the world into his head. He couldn't. They'd had enough of him, hadn't they?

Mid-afternoon, he found his feet taking him towards the debrief room. It was empty and Harry made his way slowly to the case board, spelling it with a flick of his wand to show Malfoy's case.  
All of the details were there, laid out before him. It would be so easy to take what he knew to Robards.  
_Malfoy is trapping people_ , he could say. _He's promising them something that isn't real. That could never be real._ Harry closed his eyes and let himself return to the dream, for just a second. Just long enough to see his mum's bright smile as his dad spun her around in the kitchen, dipping her into a kiss and winking at him in response to his protest at having to see that.

'What are you doing?' came a voice from behind him.  
Harry spun, jerking his wand up. He lowered it again as he saw Ron walking towards him, eyes moving slowly between Harry and the case board.  
Ron looked concerned, and suddenly Harry wanted to tell him everything. Wanted to unload onto him and let Ron help him get out of this mess. He remembered the laughter in the tent - the overwhelming relief that Ron had come back to them - come back to him.  
He would kill to have that again - that closeness. Surely they could have that again?

Ron flicked his wand at the board and it went blank. 'That's not your case,' he said, narrowing his eyes at Harry, his concern changing to judgement. 'You're not cleared for active duty and you especially shouldn't be going near Malfoy. He's dangerous.'  
Harry felt his leaping hope that he could talk to Ron shrivel and die inside him. Ron was looking at him like he knew everything. Like Harry was just some stupid kid still, following Malfoy around because he had a feeling.

Harry crossed his arms over his chest, hunching his shoulders as he looked up at Ron. The sensation made him think of Malfoy towering over him the night before - Malfoy outsmarting him. Malfoy inside his mind taking whatever he wanted.  
Harry was sick of it. So sick of all of them judging him. Thinking they knew him.  
_I got further than all of you_ , he wanted to yell in Ron's face. _I know what he's up to. I know it now and I knew it in sixth year._

But he said nothing. He merely pushed past Ron. He didn't stop until he was at the Apparition point. He couldn't be here any longer. He had plans to make.

\----

Harry cleared a wall of his bedroom, pulling pictures of family and friends down with his wand and directing them to a cluttered pile in the corner. He paused for a moment as he took down a picture of his parents on their wedding day. He stroked a finger over his mother's face, remembering the warmth in her eyes, so different from the dull green gaze he saw in the mirror each day.

He scowled, placing the picture on a pile with the others, then he pulled out his notes - his duplicates of Malfoy's file. He laid them up on the wall, one by one. The mugshot went in the centre. Harry wanted to hex Malfoy's smug face staring down at him. The fucking picture was watching him, tracking his every move. He ignored it.

He went back into the living room and gathered a pen and more parchment. Then he lit a smoke and began taking his own notes - memories of the night before. He sketched the dragon on the entrance to the dream room. He didn't know if it meant something, but he wanted to be thorough.  
He drew the layout of the room and tried to recall how many people had been in it, both before and after he awoke. Then he made a list: gender, rough age, defining characteristics. He didn’t think he'd recognised anyone, but he couldn't be sure.

He paused for a moment, shame and embarrassment running through him again as he thought about the dreams. He pushed it to one side. He had a job to do. This was what being an Auror was about - solving the case no matter the personal cost.

He steeled himself and then began to write out the details of the dreams, one at a time. Everything he could remember, what Malfoy had said and done, during and after them. How Harry had felt, and how much of that he thought was real and how much Malfoy had pushed on to him.  
He hesitated over the last dream, thinking of his parents, of the joy in their faces, of the rightness in coming home to them. A part of him didn't want to sully the memory by writing it down - by admitting it had been part of the dream - a fantasy Malfoy had spun to suck him in. The last thought made him grip his pen tighter and begin writing again with a scowl.

He laid the pieces of paper up on the wall, one by one. His bedroom was hazy with smoke by the time he was done. He'd be damned if he'd let Malfoy blackmail him, and damned if he'd let him continue to play his sick games.  
Harry paused for a moment, looking at the images of the three wizards who had gone missing from Malfoy's bar. He wondered what had happened to them.  
The dreamscape had been scary at times - it had felt so real - but he didn't think it had been dangerous.  
Victor had been expecting to see his child again - had hurried towards the room as though it was the only thing he could think of. That wasn't something that people did when they were in danger.

Harry took another piece of parchment and wrote _Cause of Death?_ in large letters, sticking it underneath the image of the three wizards. He paused for a moment, wondering if they were even dead. Perhaps they had been in the room with him, lost in the dreams. He frowned, trying to sharpen his memory of the night before. There had been so much smoke and his mind had been so hazy. He shook his head and rubbed at his eyes. Gods, but he was tired. He felt like the sleep he'd had at the bar hadn't rested him at all.

He cast a Tempus and was surprised to see it was after ten. He tried to think about whether he had slept at all the night before when he got home. He didn’t think he had, and he glanced over at his bed, wondering if maybe he should try and see if he could get a few hours. Then he caught the flicker of movement from Malfoy's headshot as it sneered down at him. He felt anger stir in him, remembering Malfoy's words - his threats - from the night before.

He flipped Malfoy the finger and went downstairs to the kitchen, pouring himself another cup of coffee before coming back up. His stomach protested weakly, reminding him he hadn't eaten all day, but Harry ignored it. Plans had begun running through his mind. One by one he looked at them from all angles before discarding them and moving on. He came back to his notes about the dream of his parents every now and again, to run his fingers lightly over them, to capture, just for an instant, the peace and happiness he had felt in that moment.

Each time he turned away, hardened himself. He had to find a way to expose Malfoy, to find out what he was doing to make people disappear and to recover the memories Malfoy had stolen from him. There had to be a way.

It was dawn before Harry had cobbled together a plan. He thought through all the various elements one final time, nodding to himself, wincing as his head swam from the movement. He rubbed at his temples, promising himself that once this was done, he could sleep.  
He glanced back up at the case board to reassure himself. It would work. 

He cast a disillusionment charm on the information on his wall and made sure the note on his bedside table was in order and outlined exactly what he needed it to. Then he held his wand to his temple, gathered the thoughts in his mind and whispered the spell he needed to make all of this work.  
'Obliviate.'

\---

Harry Apparated to the alley beside Malfoy's bar. The landing made him stagger and he held out a hand, leaning against the brick wall and hanging his head as he focussed on breathing deeply - waiting for everything to stop spinning. He felt nausea rising in him, but he swallowed it down, gritting his teeth. He would get through this. He was stronger than anything Malfoy could throw at him.

The sign on the door was flipped to closed, but Harry hammered on it anyway.

It was five minutes before he heard movement within, then the door was wrenched open and Malfoy stood in front of him again.  
'What?' he snarled, looking down at Harry with a frown of annoyance.  
Harry looked up at him, letting his glamour drop for just a moment. He couldn’t hold them for long, but he only needed it for long enough that he wouldn't be seen entering Malfoy's bar.  
Malfoy's eyes widened in shock and then narrowed.

'What the fuck are you doing here?' he said, voice cold.  
'I -' Harry's mouth went dry, and then he remembered what he'd come to do. Steeled himself. 'I want to see them again. My parents.' Malfoy's face didn't change, impassive and uncaring.  
Harry swallowed, forcing the words from his mouth, choking back his bitterness at begging Malfoy for anything. 'Please. I can’t think about anything else. ' It wasn't a lie. The thought of being in his parents' presence again - of having their arms around him - had been gnawing at him since he'd woken up from the dream two days ago. He'd seen inside Victor's mind. He'd seen how desperate his need was to get back to the bar - how all-consuming. It wasn't hard to put that in his eyes.  
Malfoy looked at him, gaze considering, as though looking deeper within him, trying to catch his thoughts.

Harry wondered, suddenly, if Malfoy could cast Legilimency just as well while his subjects were awake. He strengthened his shields just in case.  
'I told you I would expose your darkest secrets to the entire world and your response was to come back and give me more?' Malfoy asked finally, a faintly incredulous tone in his voice.  
Harry latched onto it. Malfoy was wavering, he could feel it. He just had to push it a tiny bit further.  
'I want to see them again,' he said, letting desperation bleed into his tone. He didn’t stop to analyse how he felt about letting Malfoy see this side of him - this vulnerability. It wasn't real anyway. Not really. 'Please,' he said, reaching out, then letting his hand drop just before touching Malfoy. Malfoy's eyes flicked down for a moment and Harry read surprise. He felt a stab of satisfaction. 'Just one more time. I can pay.'  
He dug the pouch of coin out of his pocket and thrust it forward. He didn't know what the going rate was, but he had brought far more than Victor had provided.  
'How much for all day?'

Malfoy looked down at Harry's hand and then back up at his face, that same, considering look back in his eyes. Harry huffed in frustration, not having to work hard to bring the emotion to the surface. He just wanted to push past Malfoy and go inside, but he forced himself to be patient.  
'Look, Malfoy. Obviously I'm not going to expose you. You've made it very clear what the consequences of that would be. If you've got me over a barrel, I might as well be getting something from it.'

Malfoy quirked an eyebrow and Harry realised, suddenly, how his words had sounded, and what they could infer. He flushed but refused to take them back. He _needed_ Malfoy to let him inside.  
Malfoy seemed to finally make up his mind. He reached out and took the pouch from Harry's hand, slipping it into a pocket before he gestured inside.  
'That will get you the day, Potter,' he said, that same, knowing smile from the other night on his face.  
'Good,' Harry said, following him in. Relief flooded through him and then faded just as quickly. Harry felt nervousness rising it its place and he couldn't stop his hands clenching and unclenching. He shoved them in his pockets and looked around himself, trying to take in additional details - anything he might have missed the day before.

Malfoy paused at the bar. 'Do you want Dreamless to put you under?' he asked, gesturing at the shelves. 'Or something else?'  
Harry hesitated. He hadn't realised anything else was possible. He tapped his foot and wrapped his arms around himself. His nerves were growing. He didn't know why he'd thought this would be a good idea.

'Do you have any Gillyweed?' he asked, then flushed. Of course Malfoy had Gillyweed, the whole room had reeked of it. 'A joint,' he clarified. He needed to relax. He needed this tension out or he was doing to say or do something more than he meant to.  
Malfoy cocked his head slightly to one side, the way a raptor might before tearing into its prey, but then he nodded, reaching behind the bar and flicking something at Harry. He snatched it out of the air almost instinctively and a faint smile crossed Malfoy's face, so quick Harry almost didn't register it.

'I could send you flying,' Malfoy said, as he turned to the door. 'Quidditch World Champion Harry Potter could be how you spend your day.' His voice was pleasant, but underneath it there was an edge of sharp mockery that Harry shied away from.  
'No,' he muttered. 'I just want to see my family again.'  
'Suit yourself,' Malfoy said indifferently, as he pushed the door open. Harry noted with interest that he didn't have to touch the dragon to do so.

The room was dimly lit, and as hazy as it had been the other night. Harry looked around himself more carefully, trying not to make it obvious that he was counting the beds and the inhabitants. Twenty four spaces, four people present, far less than there had been when he visited at night. _Five including you_ , a voice whispered dryly in his mind. Harry ignored it. That was different. He wasn't like them. He let his thoughts skitter away from that without focussing on it.

'I want one of the ones in the shadows,' he said, as Malfoy gestured him towards a stretcher in the centre of the room. He stepped closer to Malfoy and lowered his voice. 'My glamour will slip while I'm sleeping. People can't know I'm here.'  
Malfoy curled a lip. 'Of course not,' he said, in a voice that was derision layered with false sympathy. 'We can’t have the world knowing their Chosen One frequents a place like this, can we?' But he gestured Harry to one of the alcoves anyway. It was the farthest from the torches and was cast in shadow.

Harry sat on the edge of the bed and pulled his wand from his sleeve. He put the joint to his mouth and lit it, sucking back immediately. The smoke already in the room had dulled his nerves a little but he needed something more - something to settle him - to stop him walking out the door.  
He felt the buzzing warmth of it flow through him and he closed his eyes, holding the smoke in his lungs as long as he could before blowing it out in a steady stream.  
When he opened his eyes, Malfoy was still there. Watching him.

The Gillyweed took the edge off just enough for Harry to ask, 'How long have you been doing this, anyway?'  
Malfoy shook his head. 'You're not here so we can make conversation, Potter. Let's not pretend, shall we?'  
Harry opened his mouth to protest, but something in Malfoy's eyes stopped him. Instead he drew back on the joint again, sucking it back hard and fast, finishing it in four big pulls. It felt so good to let the familiar buzz take him, let him float free of every bullshit problem he had right now.

He pulled his wand out to extinguish the end but Malfoy waved his first with a faint roll of his eyes and something that sounded like, 'Gryffindors' muttered under his breath. The burning end disappeared and Harry looked down at his fingers in surprise, then back up at Malfoy. He let out a giggle. It escaped his lips without meaning to.  
Malfoy's eyebrows rose so far and so fast Harry wondered if they would jump right off his face. 

He considered an eyebrow-less Malfoy and the thought made him giggle again. He stuffed his knuckles into his mouth, biting down and trying to stop the sounds from escaping. He imagined Malfoy's blond eyebrows flying around the room by themselves, attaching themselves to people's faces.  
'How would you get them back?' he asked, withdrawing his fist.

'Get what - ' Malfoy started, before he scowled in annoyance, taking a step backwards and pushing Harry flat on the bed. 'Lie down, you idiot.' He reached up and put a finger to Harry's temple.  
'Soft-' Harry started to say, before Malfoy murmured something and then he was asleep. There was no rifling through his mind this time - no hanging in space and darkness with taunting laughter around him.

He woke to the smell of bacon cooking, and golden light flowing in from his bedroom window. He stretched and looked across at his clock. It was eight in the morning. Harry groaned and considered stuffing his head back under his pillow, but there was something niggling in his mind, something his mum had said, the night before, before he'd gone to sleep.  
_BIRTHDAY!_ Today was his eleventh birthday. He pulled the covers back and almost fell over himself in his hurry to get out of bed and down the stairs.

'Are you okay?' came his mum's voice from down below, and Harry winced at the concern in her voice. It wasn't like he fell out of bed all the time. Only sometimes. Well maybe a few times a week. But it was only that one time he'd fallen down the stairs. He rushed down them now, in his burgundy pj's. Dad had bought them for him a few years ago. Mum had rolled her eyes and said they should just wait and see, and not to put pressure on him, but Dad had hugged him close and said he knew a Gryffindor when he saw one.

Harry skidded into the kitchen, looking around with wide eyes.  
'Is it here? Did it come?'  
His dad looked up from the paper, a twinkle in his eyes. 'Good morning, birthday boy,' he said with a smile. 'I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking about. Unless it's your presents? Those are here, of course.'  
'Daaad,' Harry said, turning his pleading gaze on his mum, who was flipping bacon with a smile on her face.

She tilted her head to the toaster. Propped up against it was a letter. He rushed forward, snatching it up.  
_Mr H Potter_  
_16 Church Lane_  
_Godric's Hollow_

He flipped it open, excitement fizzing in him at the sight of the Hogwarts crest. He pulled out the letter within and began reading loudly, his voice rising in excitement. 'Dear Mr Potter. We are pleased to inform you that you have a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry'. The last word was practically a screech as Harry waved the letter in the air and then stepped into his mum's arms as she hugged him tight, pressing a kiss onto his messy hair.  
'Well done, my love,' she whispered to him, and Harry felt happiness glow through him like a fire.

\----

He came back to himself much later - after he'd had breakfast with his family and talked to them about anything and everything to do with starting school in a few months. Lunch with his uncles - where Sirius had teased him mercilessly that he would be sorted into Slytherin house and Remus had assured him that no matter where he was sorted he would do well. And then flying all afternoon - on the new Nimbus 2000 he'd gotten for his birthday.

It had been even harder to leave the dream this time. Harder to come away from the love and acceptance and happiness wrapped around him. He could still feel it in his mind, as though it really were a memory, rather than a fantasy. He could feel the glow of it - felt as though he could cast a thousand Patronuses if he had to. The idea of that made him pause, made him force his brain to start moving again. To start calculating and considering.  
Malfoy. Malfoy had given him this. It was so different to the first time, where his mind had felt invaded, on display - where Malfoy had seemed to delight in making Harry hurt.

And Malfoy, himself, had been absent from the dream. Harry had assumed Malfoy was in all the dreams, a silent spectator, like he had been during Harry's first experience. But something about that didn't feel right. He looked around the room at the still and dreaming forms. These people didn't know Malfoy - didn't know him outside of what he provided them in this room. It wouldn't make sense for Malfoy to appear in their dreams and memories. So when Malfoy had inserted himself into Harry's first experiences, he had done it on purpose - done it to rattle Harry. He frowned and looked up.

'Why are you doing this?' Harry asked, the soft and warm feeling from the dream fading as his suspicions crept back in. It must be a trap of some sort. A trick. This was _Malfoy_. 'Why are you showing me good things? Me, of all people?'  
Malfoy opened his mouth to say something, then hesitated, scowling. 'This is my job, Potter. If I was shit at it, no one would come back. Your money is as good as anyone else's, so it's only fair you get as good as anyone else. And I'm the best.' There was pride and challenge in Malfoy's tone, as though he dared Harry to argue with him.

Harry thought back to his perfect day. The birthday he'd spent his whole life wishing he could have. 'Yes,' he said softly, unable to muster up even a hint of his earlier anger. 'You are.'

\---

Harry got home late. He picked up a burger on the way, choking it down as he walked the final street to his door. He didn't want it. Wasn't hungry. But he didn't think he'd eaten in a day. Maybe two. He thought back to the huge spread he'd had for lunch with his parents and Sirius and Remus, grinning faintly at the thought of the table groaning with his favourites. He'd eaten then. He'd stuffed himself until he couldn't move. _But that wasn't real_ , he reminded himself. _You didn't actually eat._ He couldn’t tell if the light-headedness he felt now was from the not-sleep he'd had during the dream, the aftereffects of breathing Gillyweed all day or the fact that he'd forgotten to look after himself again.

He shrugged. It didn't matter. He unlocked the door and walked in, stopping short as he saw the large sign taped to the banister.

 _STOP. READ THE PACKAGE OF INFORMATION IN THE TOP DRAWER OF YOUR BEDSIDE TABLE_.

Harry would recognise his own messy handwriting anywhere, but he didn’t remember writing the note. He put the half-eaten burger on the side table and draw his wand, sending a quick spell through the house to check for signs of life. There were none. He was alone. He flicked a spell at the wards next. They were unbreeched. He frowned, glancing at the note again before heading up the stairs.

He pulled the drawer of his bedside table out and saw a note addressed to himself, in his own hand again. It directed him to remove the disillusionment charm from the wall and add the information he'd gathered that day to the case he was compiling against Malfoy.  
He raised his eyebrows and did as the note said, smiling as he saw the information come to life before him.  
'Clever boy, Harry,' he murmured, smiling more broadly as he set to work, comparing his memories of the day with what was already laid out.

He lit a smoke, poured himself a coffee and spent an hour or two working on his notes, recording the memory of the dream, each detail coming to life vividly in his mind's eye. He lingered on it, pulling the memories of warmth and happiness around him.

When he was done, he pinned them to the wall beside the others and took a shower, hoping the hot water would let him wind down and move him towards sleep. Just like the first time, he didn't feel rested, despite having spent the whole day apparently asleep. He felt instead as though he had lived that day - been out to lunch, flown all afternoon. His whole body ached with tiredness.

Despite his worries, he found drifting to sleep far easier than he did most nights. As he lay in bed, he replayed moments of his dream in his mind, remembering the exact look on his mum's face as she'd said goodnight to him, the joy on his dad's as they'd raced around the yard on their brooms.

He woke three hours later, jerking upright in his bed, scream ringing from his throat and heart pounding in his chest. He sat forward, resting his arms on his knees and sucked in air, trying to push the dream from his mind.  
He'd dreamed of the Forest again - the Acromantulas this time. He groped for his wand and cast at the lights, unable to sit in the darkness. Ron was the one who was scared of spiders, not him.

Harry shivered, remembering the feeling of the pincers cutting into his flesh - the agony as his arm was ripped from its socket. He reached up to rub at it, trying to block the sounds of Ron's screams from his mind, the sight of his best friend's face, right before the pincers had closed around his neck and - 

Harry shuddered and pushed his way out of bed. He didn't want the lights off again. He didn't want to lie in the darkness and remember any part of that. He considered heading into the living room and flicking the telly on, but he felt too jittery. Instead he looked across at his case wall. The sight of something purposeful - meaningful - helped him to feel settled. He looked over it, grounding himself, then he dressed, disillusioned it, and wrote himself the notes again, explaining what he should and shouldn't know and what to do when he returned. Then he turned his wand on himself, blanking his memories after the bar, replacing them with sleep and a driving need just to see his family and live his dreams again. 

As soon as he was done, he felt that need growing in himself. He Apparated straight back to the alley beside Malfoy's bar.

The door was open, despite the fact that it was two in the morning and Harry went straight in, touching the dragon carving and watching the door shimmer. Malfoy was inside and Harry spared a moment to wonder if he ever slept either. Then Malfoy was striding across the room to him, recognising Harry through the weak glamour he wore.  
'What are you doing back here?' he said, looking down at Harry with a glare.  
Harry hesitated for a moment on his answer, wishing he'd thought more about it before Apparating over, but then he shrugged, deciding on the truth.  
'Nightmares.'

Malfoy looked down at him a moment longer, before some of the hardness seemed to go out of his face. 'You shouldn't be here so often,' he said at last. 'Most of my clients only come once or twice a week.'  
Harry shrugged. 'I'm not most people.'  
Malfoy pursued his lips, the scar across his cheek pulling tight at the movement. 'No,' he murmured. 'You're not.'

He held his hand out and Harry deposited the pouch of coin in it. Malfoy hefted it for a moment before gesturing him to the same alcove he'd been in the day before. Harry breathed a sigh of relief to see it was empty, despite the other alcoves being taken. He looked around as he went, not sure why he felt driven to, but wanting somehow to focus on taking in the information around himself, and not just on his yearning to be thinking something that wasn't pain and fear and loneliness.

Malfoy muttered a spell and a bottle flew into his hand. 'You got stupid on the Gillyweed. Have Dreamless again.'  
Harry took the bottle without protest. He didn't care what he took, as long as it got him back to that place. He paused for a moment, frowning at himself internally. No, that wasn't right. This was his story - his cover. He shook his head, aware that Malfoy was watching him - his hesitation. He couldn't afford to think those things. Malfoy would be _in_ his head in a moment.

'Do you think this is strange?' he asked, looking up at Malfoy, the uncapped bottle clasped loosely in his hands.  
Malfoy looked like he wasn't going to answer but then he huffed out a sigh. ' _What_ is strange?'  
'Us,' Harry said. 'Here. Me, letting you into my mind voluntarily.'  
Malfoy's lip curled into a sneer and his eyes turned flinty. 'Strange doesn't begin to describe what crawling inside your cesspit of a mind is like, Potter,' he said. 'Now drink.'

Harry considered pushing him. He had to try and get Malfoy to talk - to open up to him, somehow, if he had any hope of figuring out the full picture of what went on at Dreaming Darkly. Then an idea occurred to him.  
'Can I have Hogwarts this time?' he asked, sending a weak smile Malfoy's way, as though he was embarrassed to have asked.  
Malfoy's mouth thinned and he sneered again. 'I suppose you want some romp with the girl Weasel, do you? Relive your glory days?'

Harry shook his head emphatically. 'No. Not Ginny. Besides, that's not really where I bat, nowadays.'  
Malfoy gave a noncommittal hum but Harry could see something spark in his eyes. He hoped it was enough. He lifted the bottle to his lips and swallowed it down. The milky taste promised him oblivion - a reprieve from thoughts, from pain and loneliness and loss. It promised him that with just a few bottles more, it could make everything go away. He ignored it - he'd changed demons a long time ago. Harry lay back on the bed, letting go of his glamour as he closed his eyes. The last thing he saw was Malfoy looking down at him, an unreadable expression on his face.

He woke to the Room of Requirement. It had been set up just how Dean had planned it. Harry looked around in excitement. The monthly inter-house parties for the seventh years had been getting more and more interesting. It was one of Dumbledore's more inspired ideas, Harry thought. It made sense that as they came of age and started to prepare to enter the real world, they needed to let those prejudices start to break down - to start to see each other as people first and houses second. Plus, seventh year was bloody stressful with the amount of classes they had piled on top of them. They deserved a chance to unwind every now and again.

Harry took a sip of his drink and then glanced across the busy room to see the door opening and four people walk in. He found his eyes drawn to them, despite himself. The Slytherins usually looked like they'd come in protest, but tonight Malfoy carried what looked to be a bottle of Firewhisky and Zabini, Parkinson and Nott had left their usual school robes behind, instead dressing Muggle in a way that surprised Harry. He glanced back at Malfoy. Of course _he_ couldn't resist pushing everyone's face in the fact that he was a Slytherin first and everything else second. Harry rolled his eyes at the perfectly neat tie, the pressed robes with their slash of emerald, folded open so precisely that Malfoy may as well have measured the edging.

Then Malfoy looked across the room at him, raising one eyebrow and Harry jerked his eyes away. He hadn't been staring. He'd been watching everyone who came in the door.  
Harry startled as Ron came up beside him, jostling him on the shoulder.  
'Dean's set up a game,' he said with a grin. 'Another Muggle one.'  
Harry looked across the room, to the disillusioned corner where the games usually ran. The room had created a space that only those within it could observe. Harry thought it was a good idea, given the direction some of those games had run at past parties.

He moved towards the corner, interested to see what would be played tonight … and who would play. There were half a dozen people within the disillusionment charm when he stepped through and Harry smiled at Hermione, who was already seated on one of the beanbags. Dean was there, of course, and Seamus. Padma, Parvati and Lavender were also in the circle and Harry gave Ron a discrete nudge in the ribs at that. Ron didn't respond except to step - hard - on Harry's toes with his next movement. Harry cried out, more surprised than hurt, and Ron turned to him with wide eyes.  
'Sorry mate, clumsy me.'  
Harry narrowed his eyes at Ron, mostly joking. 'You'll keep.'

Ron winked at him and moved over to sit next to Hermione. Harry took a seat on her other side, then looked up in surprise as the four Slytherins entered the circle. Everyone tensed for a moment. In the last few months they'd been playing the games, the Slytherins hadn't participated. But then Dean waved them to a seat and made a complicated movement with his wand that closed the circle. Harry darted a glance at Malfoy, wondering what he was playing at. Malfoy met his gaze coolly, but Harry could see a hint of a challenge in his eyes. He gritted his teeth. He could take on any challenge Malfoy put in front of him.

'Tonight,' Dean said, interrupting Harry's thoughts, 'we're going to play a fun little Muggle game called 'Spin the Bottle'.' There were one or two gasps from around the circle from people who had clearly heard of the game before. The rest just watched Dean as he placed an empty butterbeer bottle in the centre of the circle.  
'It's simple,' he said, looking around at the assembled faces with a grin. 'You spin, and kiss whoever the bottle points to. Each round we'll up the stakes. Kisses must be at least five seconds in round one, or you're out. Round two will have tongue. Round three will be full body alignment. Round four - well, let's just see who makes it that far,' he grinned.

Harry looked around the circle, seeing some people look faintly alarmed and some lean forward with anticipation. Malfoy just cracked the bottle of Firewhisky he'd carried in and took a drink, straight from the bottle, before tilting his head back to blow the smoke into the air in a steady stream. Harry swallowed dryly as his eyes caught and held on Malfoy's smooth, pale throat. Malfoy handed the bottle to Nott, wiping his hand over the back of his mouth with a knowing smirk at Harry as he did. Harry looked away, embarrassed to be caught watching and surprised at the behaviour from the normally uptight Slytherin.  
Hermione nudged him gently and Harry realised he'd been staring. He pulled his attention back to the game and tried to think about who he'd be okay with kissing … and what sort of kiss he'd be okay having. The thoughts got too complicated so he resolved to sit back and see what happened.

Dean went first, spinning to Ron. Ron's eyes widened in surprise and Harry leaned forward to watch his reaction. Ron took a deep breath and then moved to his knees. Dean shuffled forward with a grin and an, 'Okay Weasley?'  
Ron nodded and Dean leaned forward, pressing their lips together. Ron had closed his eyes and he pulled away once the required five seconds were done, but he smiled at Dean as he did so. 'Not bad, Thomas.'  
Dean laughed and went back to his seat.

They went around the circle like that. Some kisses more interesting than others. Harry sat forward when Zabini spun for Malfoy, then looked over at him with an arched eyebrow and a cocky look. Malfoy didn't seem fazed at all. He pushed himself smoothly to his feet and then reached down to pull Zabini to his. He wasted no time in slipping his hand behind Zabini's head and pulling their mouths together. Harry's eyes widened as he saw Zabini's hand slide inside Malfoy's robes. Malfoy seemed to press forward in response to whatever Zabini was doing and Harry saw his mouth open. He felt something stir inside himself as he watched. He tried to push it away. This was _Malfoy_. He wasn't - he didn't -

Then the kiss was over, wolf whistles around the circle greeting the end of it.  
Malfoy returned smoothly to his seat, reaching for the bottle and taking another sip. He blew the smoke up into the air as, just for a moment, his grey eyes flicked over Harry. Harry tried to ignore the jolt of excitement that look sent through him. It was just a reaction to seeing two people kiss. Two objectively attractive people.

He spun last and it went to Nott. Harry began to push himself out of the beanbag, something in his chest sitting leaden, but Nott didn't move. He just crossed his arms.  
'You forfeit?' Dean asked, a frown on his face. Nott hesitated a moment and then nodded.  
'Fine,' Dean said, as he waved his wand and the circle around them shimmered for a moment. 'Out.'  
Nott looked as though he would protest, glancing at the other Slytherins, but no one seemed interested in backing him. He muttered something under his breath as he pushed up and left.

Harry sank back into the beanbag and tried not to feel humiliated despite the fact that he hadn't wanted to kiss Nott anyway. He didn't look at Malfoy. He didn't want to see the look on his face.  
Dean closed the circle and looked around at them all. 'Right,' he said, grinning. 'Round two. Tongue.'

Three more left the circle - Lavender refused to kiss Malfoy and Parvati refused to kiss Parkinson. When Hermione's spin went to Parkinson as well, Harry started to suspect she had concealed her wand somewhere and was using it to rig the game so she could force people out.  
But Hermione just gritted her teeth and pushed to her knees. Parkinson's eyes widened for a fraction of a moment and Malfoy snorted softly. That seemed to be enough to jolt her into action. She moved forward as well, opening her mouth to say something.

Hermione - probably knowing if Parkinson insulted her, she was more likely to hex the woman than kiss her - moved to close the distance, pressing their lips together. Harry glanced at Ron to see him staring, rapt, at the two women kissing. Harry returned his gaze to them, surprised to see that both of them seemed to be enjoying themselves, now the initial moment had passed. It went on for a few seconds more and then they drew apart, neither looking at the other.

Harry spun next and got Seamus. He glanced over and Seamus grinned at him, waggling his eyebrows. Harry laughed and moved to his knees, meeting Seamus in the middle. The kiss was awkward to start with - their mouths not quite aligned, the slight rasp of Seamus' stubble feeling different to anything he'd felt before … but also, in some strange way, familiar. Then Seamus' tongue darted against Harry's lips and Harry opened his mouth slightly, all thoughts disappearing from his mind. All he could focus on was heat and pleasure, as Seamus' tongue slid against his. Harry let out a low moan, then was immediately embarrassed at making that sound in front of everyone else. The embarrassment disappeared a moment later as Seamus echoed him, pulling him closer.

'Right-o, right-o,' Dean said, a laugh in his voice. 'Break it up, you two.'  
Harry pulled back, licking his lips, and Seamus dropped him a quick wink. Harry smiled at him and then shuffled back into his seat. He looked around the circle, stopping at Malfoy. His eyes were lowered to the bottle in his hand, as though he hadn't paid any attention to the kiss, but there was a faint blush of red in his cheeks that Harry thought told a different story. He felt something uncurl in his chest in satisfaction at that thought. He tried not to examine the sensation too closely.

The next round took more casualties. Ron spun Padma and looked across the circle at her, before looking back at Hermione. He seemed to struggle with himself for a moment before he shook his head and leaned over to give Hermione a quick kiss. Harry heard him murmur good luck to her as he left the circle.  
Parkinson turned up her nose at a kiss with Seamus, claiming she didn't want him groping her the way he had Harry. Seamus, for some reason, hesitated when it came to kissing Zabini. Harry, watching him, as he looked anywhere but at the other man, wondered if it was a case of perhaps wanting too much, more than not.

Dean and Padma kissed, Dean's hands moving lower and lower as he pulled their bodies together. The kiss lasted a good minute or two before Dean leaned over to whisper the spell to Hermione and then he and Padma left the circle, hand in hand.

Harry looked at the bottle in front of him, and then looked around their much-reduced circle, at who was left. Hermione, Zabini and Malfoy were the only three still there with him. Harry looked back at the bottle and then opened his mouth. Maybe he should call it off. It was such a small group now. If he spun Hermione he'd have to leave anyway. He could touch lips with her, but a full frontal snog? That was wrong for so many reasons.

'Scared, Potter?' Malfoy's words, and the mockery in them, derailed Harry's thoughts, bringing him up short.  
'You wish,' he snorted, reaching for the bottle and giving it a hard spin. He watched it rotate, light flashing across it as it got slower and slower. It moved slowly past Hermione, then Zabini, before it came to a stop in front of Malfoy.  
Harry's eyes widened and he felt his heart ratchet in his chest. He looked up and met Malfoy's silver eyes, seeing something reflected in them that he couldn't quite name. 

He hesitated, waiting for Malfoy to move, not wanting to be the first to break - not wanting to be too eager. He wasn't eager. He just wanted to win, that was all.  
Malfoy raised one eyebrow slowly, his lips twisting into a smirk, as though he was reading Harry's thoughts.

Something faint in Harry's mind stirred, as though trying frantically to be heard. _He_ is _reading your thoughts. This is just a dream. This isn't real._ He pushed it away. He'd never let Malfoy beat him before and he wasn't about to start now.

He pushed himself out of the beanbag, kneeling in front of it. If Malfoy didn't want to chicken out, he would have to come to Harry.  
Malfoy's smirk grew lazy, and something hot stirred in his eyes at Harry's movement. He sat the bottle down to one side and pushed to his feet, walking the few steps towards Harry and standing in front of him.

Harry flushed as he realised he was kneeling in front of Malfoy - that his mouth was lined up with Malfoy's groin. Before he could push to his feet, Malfoy reached a hand down towards him. 'I believe that's not until round four, Potter,' he said, voice husky in a way Harry had never heard before.

Harry took his hand automatically, the warmth of Malfoy's skin surprising him. Malfoy pulled him easily to his feet and Harry realised, up close, that Malfoy had an inch or two on him. He found, somehow, that he didn't mind that - didn't mind looking up to him. Didn't mind the way Malfoy's hands slid into his hair, cupped his face.

He found, to his breathless surprise, that he most definitely didn't mind the way Malfoy's mouth felt against his. Malfoy's lips were soft, and not as thin as they appeared when he was sneering. Malfoy's hands on the side of his face were gentle as he tilted Harry's head, encouraging him to open up with a slow stroke of a thumb across his cheek. Harry drew in a shaky breath and did as Malfoy asked. And then they were kissing. _Really_ kissing, Malfoy's tongue sliding against his, his mouth slightly bitter with the taste of firewhisky.

Harry brought his hands up, almost without conscious thought, to Malfoy's hips. He could feel them, bony through the robes. Malfoy nipped lightly on Harry's bottom lip and Harry's hands clenched automatically, drawing Malfoy closer in response to the flare of heat that had travelled through him. Malfoy went willingly, pressing his body against Harry's. Harry could feel the heat of him through their clothes, and his hands slid around Malfoy like it was the most natural thing in the world to be cupping his arse, pulling him closer. Malfoy deepened the kiss, groaning in response.

Harry could feel himself getting hard. He wanted, suddenly, to get his hands on Malfoy. Needed there not to be robes between them. He wanted skin on skin. He wanted to lose himself in Malfoy. Gods, but he'd wanted this for so long.

Something in that thought jarred him and pulled him up short. _You haven't always wanted Malfoy_ , a tiny voice in his head murmured. Harry grasped it this time, trying to see where it had come from. He pulled at it, and it was connected to a single word. _Dream_.

Harry opened his eyes, pulling back and Malfoy looked at him in surprise for a moment before a slow smirk spread across his face.  
'Well done, Potter,' he murmured, as the dream started to dissolve around them. 'I thought I'd get you to bend over for me for sure.'

Harry came out of the dream more quickly this time, sitting up on the bed, breathing quickly. He could still feel the press of Malfoy's body against his, feel the heat of his mouth. He shifted uncomfortably, aware that he was just as hard as he had been in the dream. He wanted to get up and confront Malfoy, ask him what the fuck that had been, but he didn't want to reveal just how affected he had been.

When he looked around he saw Malfoy on the other side of the room, murmuring to a woman who was sitting up, a beatific smile on her face. She didn't seem to see anything around her, as she rose from the stretcher and made her way out of the room.

It was only after she'd left that Malfoy turned to him, meeting his gaze through the hazy gloom. Harry clenched his teeth and made his demand silently with a jerk of his head. The ghost of a smirk crossed Malfoy's face, but he began to make his way slowly through the room, stopping here and there to let his fingers drift over the people stretched out in sleep.

He halted before Harry and crossed his arms, that hint of a smirk still hovering.  
'What the fuck was that?' Harry hissed, feeling himself go red at the memory of dream-Malfoy's smirk, at the knowing look in his eyes. That look was almost mirrored by the one Malfoy wore now.  
Malfoy shrugged. 'You wanted Hogwarts and you didn't want the girl Weasel.'  
Harry shook his head, 'That's bullshit. You - you made me. I would never have -'

Malfoy's face hardened, and a look like anger flashed across it before it was gone. He held up a hand. 'I did not force you into anything that happened in that dream. I merely planted the seeds - the players and the stage. Your subconscious let the rest unfold the way it wished.'

Harry shook his head, refusing to believe that. It couldn't be true. He'd never wanted _Malfoy_.  
Malfoy sighed as though he couldn't care less what Harry thought.  
'The moment I put myself in that dream, you gravitated to me. Don't lie to yourself, Potter. It's unbecoming.'

Harry opened his mouth to argue but Malfoy turned away from him, not looking back as he said, 'You got what you came for. Now get out.'

\-----

Harry had no idea what time it was when he got home. He collapsed into bed, mentally and emotionally wrung out. When he woke - blessedly nightmare free - the sun was shining through his curtains, and there was an insistent tapping on his bedroom window.  
He looked across groggily before fumbling for his glasses and putting them on. There were three owls nudging against his window and he frowned in annoyance before grabbing his wand and spelling the window open. Damned things were so persistent. He had a massive headache and still felt like he hadn't slept in days.

All three owls dropped their letters on his bed and two flew straight back out the window. The third, which Harry belatedly recognised as Pig, fluttered around the ceiling, hooting in a deranged manner. Harry grimaced up at it and then shot a silencing spell in its direction. He considered ignoring the letters and going back to sleep, but Ron, at least, clearly wanted an answer.

He picked them up and lay back, squinting and blinking as he tried to wake up. One was from the Ministry and Harry considered an Incendio, sight unseen. Instead he flipped it open.

_Auror Potter_

Harry snorted. He was only Auror Potter when Robards was really shitty with him.

_You have not been present at work the past three days and your absence has not been registered with the Ministry. We also have no record of you seeking treatment at St. Mungo's._

There was a passage that had been crossed out heavily and Harry wondered just what Robards had written. It was probably along the lines of: _If you're on another drunken binge, you can forget coming back._ He almost wished it were.

 _We are concerned for your health and well-being. Please respond with your estimated return to work date_.

 _Regards_  
_G Robards_  
_Head Auror_  
_Ministry of Magic_

Harry balled it up, flicked it into the air and shot an Incendio at it, thinking he should have just trusted his gut. He looked at the one from Ron, but the idea of the telling off it contained made his head throb, so he picked up the final one.

It just had his name on the front and the handwriting looked vaguely familiar. He looked at it for a moment, tracing his fingers over the letters curiously. Something about it tugged at him. Was this a letter from his father?  
He had flipped it open and was about to read when something spasmed hard in his chest. Of course it wasn't from his father. It couldn't be. His father was dead. The dream where he wasn't was just that. A dream.

Harry caught a glimpse of the name _Dean_ , before he balled up that note as well, blasting an Incendio at it that almost scorched his sheets. He eyed the letter from Ron with distaste, then looked up at the ceiling where Pig was still flapping madly.  
He Accioed a piece of paper and a pen to himself and wrote a single word. _Sick_. Then he gestured to the daft bird, handing it the ripped-off piece of paper as it fluttered down.

When it had disappeared out the window, he drew the curtains and cast a silencing spell on the room. When it was dark and quiet, he slept again.

\-----

Harry told himself, when he woke late evening, that he wasn't going to visit Malfoy again. That he was done. Malfoy had tricked him, played with him and made him see something that wasn't there.  
He ignored the dream he'd had where they'd continued the kiss, where the people watching had faded away and it had just been the two of them, clothes slowly falling away, all soft touches and breathy moans.

Harry shook himself. That was a distraction. It was all a distraction. He'd only kept going back because he wanted information about the case. Because he wanted to be the one to solve it. Thinking about the case made Harry think about work. Had Jeffries had any new leads in the last few days? Harry hadn't noticed any surveillance around the bar. Had there been any more disappearances?

He was clearer, now that he'd had more than an hour or two of sleep. He could see where he'd gone wrong. He didn't have enough information, that was the problem. Perhaps he shouldn't have burned Robards' note. He pulled himself from the bed, slipping on whatever clothes he could reach the easiest. His robes were in a heap on the floor and they smelled like the self-cleaning charm had given out, but Harry couldn't bring himself to give a shit.

The Ministry was eerily silent when he entered. He knew there would be people on his level working - crime didn't sleep and all that, but Jeffries was on day shift and it wouldn't take Harry long to go through his desk. If anyone asked, he could say he was working from home and just collecting a few things.

Jeffries was a stickler for his filing, so Harry had no trouble finding Malfoy's case and flipping to the most recent updates. There was a packet of dry biscuits in the drawer as well, so Harry opened them, eating them one by one as he read. His stomach protested at him, wanting something more substantial. He couldn't remember the last time he'd eaten. Yesterday? The day before?  
He should get something. There was nothing in the house.

Then his eye caught on an update and all thoughts of food disappeared from his mind.  
They were going to send a mole in. They were going to send a fucking mole, just like Harry had, and think their mole could have a better chance than him.  
He laughed, a hard laugh. Malfoy would run rings around any Ministry idiot stupid enough to enter his doors. Harry knew him though. Harry knew how to get close to him - get information from him.

He glanced over the rest of the file quickly, not seeing anything else of interest, and then he tidied everything back up. He put the half-empty packet of biscuits in Jeffries' partner's drawer and left as quietly as he'd come. A quick stop by home to make his arrangements - Malfoy especially didn't need to know the latest information in his mind - and he was ready for the next part of the night.

Malfoy seemed resigned to seeing him when he turned up at the bar, but he took Harry's money all the same.  
'I don't think I've ever met someone with as many issues as you, Potter,' he said, as he handed over the bottle of Dreamless.  
Harry shrugged. He'd long ago come to terms with the shitshow he seemed to be making of his life.

'Any preference?' Malfoy asked, with a raised eyebrow. 'Or dealer's choice?'  
Harry had figured out, on the way over, what he needed to do. Malfoy clearly had some sort of interest in him. This wasn't just the money, or Malfoy would have Obliviated him and sent him out the door after the first visit. And he thought he knew just the tool to leverage that interest open and see what was at the heart of it.

'I want to play Quidditch,' he said, smiling as he saw the leap of interest in Malfoy's eyes, however quickly he masked it.  
'Professional Quidditch,' Malfoy drawled, 'how original.'  
Harry shook his head. 'Seeker's game. Me and you. We never did have one. I used to play against the other seekers all the time, but you always trained alone.'  
For a moment he thought Malfoy would refuse him, but Malfoy just tilted his chin at the bottle, a clear invitation to Harry to drink it down. Harry grinned at him, a thrill of excitement travelling through him. He hadn't flown in so long. He never seemed to find the time anymore, and he wasn't as strong as he used to be. The high altitudes made his head spin. But in a dream …

He threw back the potion and closed his eyes.

When he opened them he was standing on the Hogwarts Quidditch pitch, dressed in his Gryffindor training leathers, with his Firebolt in hand. He looked across to see Draco standing beside him, attired in green, snitch held lightly between his fingers.

He eyed Draco's broom, something niggling at him.  
'Since when do you have a Firebolt?' he asked.  
Draco raised an eyebrow at him. 'Did you take a bludger to the head, Potter? You were with me when we went to Quality Quidditch to pick it out.'  
Harry felt the memory unfold in his mind and he smiled. Of course he had been. Last summer, when he was staying with Draco after sixth year.

'Just a bit of pre-match sledging,' he said, grinning.  
Draco rolled his eyes. 'I'll give you a sledge in a minute,' he muttered, as he released the snitch from his hand. Harry watched it dart into the air and away before he squinted as it passed in front of the sun.  
Draco snorted. 'Seriously, Potter, I don't know how you manage to actually be a good seeker,' he said, as he swung a leg over his broom and kicked up into the air.  
'You said you were going to call me Harry, now,' Harry yelled up at him as he did the same, launching into the air and leaning forward to catch up with Draco.

Draco looked over his shoulder with a laugh, and there was something deep and knowing in his eyes. 'You'll always be Potter,' he said, as he wrenched his broom around and down, chasing a speck of gold far below.

\----

When they landed two hours later, Harry was breathless and pleasantly sore from the exertion and laughter. They'd chased each other as much as the snitch, each one showing off in more and more outlandish ways, until Draco had fallen, and only Harry's quick dive had saved him from hitting the ground at high speed. They'd agreed to call it a day from there and were walking back to the change rooms, shoulders bumping together as they discussed Snape's potions project.  
'So will you help me?' Harry wheedled, trying to put on his best helpless maiden voice, aware that there was mockery laced all through it. 'Please, Draco, there's simply no way I'll pass without your mighty potions mind.'

Draco struggled to hide a grin as he looked Harry up and down as though seriously considering his words.  
'I don't know, Potter. If I have to put up with your whining and sub-par chopping techniques for the whole afternoon, what's in it for me?'  
Harry pretended to think for a minute. 'Oh, I don't know. Maybe I could talk to my uncle about you having some alone time with his library?'  
Harry laughed as Draco spun him around, both hands on his shoulders. 'Don't play with me, Potter,' he said, eyes bright. 'Do you or do you not have access to Professor Lupin's rare book collection?'

Harry held out a moment longer before he laughed again. 'He already said yes. You can go up any time you want.'  
Draco stared at him for a second and then lurched forward, wrapping Harry in a quick, hard hug. It was over almost as soon as it had started and then Draco was stepping back, a faint flush of embarrassment on his face.  
'Yes, well,' he said, clearing his throat as he turned away, heading in the direction of the change rooms again. 'I guess I could help you. For a while.'

Harry didn't respond. He was too busy staring after Draco's retreating form. They didn't hug. They never hugged. He could feel the touch of Draco's body all up his front, like it had been branded into him. He didn't know why he should be so affected by it. He hugged other friends.  
_You do know why,_ whispered a voice. _It's the same reason you couldn't get that image out of your head. That image of the time you saw him in the shower, all long legs and pale, unmarked skin_.

Harry frowned. Unmarked? Something wasn't right about that. Something important.

Draco's retreating form shimmered, then faded away. Harry watched it go with something that felt strangely like regret.

Draco - Malfoy, he reminded himself, shaking his head - was leaning against the wall at the foot of his alcove, arms crossed as he watched Harry wake up. Harry shook his head, trying to clear the grogginess away. He could have sworn, for a second, that the face of the boy he'd just flown with smiled out at him, young and happy.

But then Malfoy arched an eyebrow at him and his tone was cutting when he spoke.  
'I see you can't fly any better when you're asleep.'  
Harry scowled. 'You only beat me because you cheated.'  
'No rules in seeker's games,' Malfoy shrugged, something satisfied in the shape of his mouth.  
'I shouldn't have saved your life,' Harry huffed. Then a bigger question occurred to him and he felt a spike of anxiety. 'What would have happened if I didn't?' he asked. 'Save your life, I mean.'

Malfoy shrugged again. 'Nothing. It's just a dream.'  
Harry felt his tension ease and he sat up, swinging his legs around and wondering how long he'd been asleep this time. He spotted two newcomers to the room and at least four vacant beds since he'd gone down. He glanced up at Malfoy, who was looking out over the room as well, making no move to leave his side.

'Why do you do this?' Harry asked, shuffling forward so he was sitting on the edge of the bed. He had been thinking about it on and off, since the first time he'd walked through the door. Just what was the appeal of spooling out dreams and memories and fantasies in people's heads.  
Malfoy looked at him and then looked away. Harry thought he wasn't going to answer for a very long moment.

'I'm marked, Potter. Maybe not in my dreams, but in the real world I can't escape it. Your precious Ministry marked me worse than the Dark Lord ever did. They've made it so I can't do anything in the sunshine, so I may as well do what I'm good at in the darkness.' His voice was more resigned than bitter, as though he'd come to terms with his fate a long time ago. Harry looked again at Malfoy's scar, the angry red line that looked like it had nearly taken his eye. He wondered if that was the mark the Ministry had given him. Surely not?

But then Harry thought about Azkaban and the years Malfoy had spent there. He thought about the rumours he'd heard, about Aurors who took a rotation to Azkaban - Aurors who'd lost people during the war. He remembered seeing the same angry, red scars across Malfoy's Dark Mark, as though they'd been branded there.  
He opened his mouth to ask about Malfoy's marks, about his scars, but a lifetime of looks and comments and assumptions on his own scar held him back.

Instead he asked, 'Where did you learn?'  
He knew he was pushing his luck. He'd been surprised when Malfoy had answered his first question. But they'd had such a great time together. They'd been _friends_. Proper friends for the first time in their lives, even if none of it had been real. It seemed Malfoy still felt the remnants of that bond as well, because he answered, albeit sharply.  
'One can learn all sorts of things, Potter,' Malfoy said, jaw tight and anger bright in his eyes, 'when one has a mother going mad because her husband was tortured to death and her son returned from prison a monster.'

Harry felt the words hit him like blows as he imagined the life Malfoy's words described. He opened his mouth - to say what, he didn't know, but before he could speak, Malfoy had levelled his wand and Harry found himself standing outside of the bar, the only noise around him the harsh buzzing of the neon sign over his head. He didn't bother trying the door. He knew it would be locked.

\-----

Harry went into work the next day. He hadn't been able to sleep when he'd gotten home from the Malfoy's bar the night before. He'd been too wired from the flight and from what little details Malfoy had let slip. He knew the thing about Malfoy's mother was important - it had to be. He'd always had a close relationship with her. Harry ignored what Malfoy had said about the Ministry, preferring not to focus on what his words may have meant. 

He had made his notes as he thought about his other main problem. He had to find more information about the mole. He had to know when Jeffries planned to move. One blunder from the Aurors and all the work he had done could come to nothing. He spent half the night trying to figure out if there was any way he could stop the undercover agent from entering the bar. He didn't think he could without exposing what he was doing. The whole situation made him feel tense, frustration prickling over him. If only they would let him do his damned job.

Harry took a hangover potion in the morning, before he went in. He wasn't drunk - the half bottle of whisky he'd consumed as he'd sat up, looking over his notes and tracking his theories had burned through him, but that foggy feeling was coming back again, and he found sometimes the potion gave him a bit of clarity, just for a while.

Ron bailed him up as soon as he walked in the door. He pulled Harry aside, looking into his face with concern.  
'Where have you been? Are you okay? You look terrible.'  
Harry grimaced. He almost hadn't recognised himself in the mirror that morning. Always thin, he was now nearly skeletal. His skin was a faint grey and he had deep circles under his eyes. He'd forced himself to eat breakfast that morning on the way in. Two pieces of toast with his coffee.  
'I've been sick,' he said. 'Feeling a bit better now.'

'I got your note,' Ron said. 'If it was that bad, you should have told us. We could have brought over a casserole or something, kept you company.'  
Harry shook his head. 'Didn't want to worry you.' He turned away, wanting to be at the briefing on time for once, but Ron reached out, holding his arm gently.  
'Hey,' he said, and the look on his face was one of discomfort and resolve. 'You know we're always here for you, right? Me and Hermione.'  
Harry looked into Ron's concerned eyes and mustered a smile. He remembered Ron doing the right thing - always the right thing, where Hermione was concerned. Then he frowned. No, that had been the game. A dream, not a memory. Gods, but he was tired. 'I know.'

He and Ron were a few minutes late to the briefing. Robards levelled a glare their way, but Harry couldn't bring himself to care. He sat quietly, keeping one ear out for the only case he wanted to be updated about.

He couldn't stop thinking about Draco - about _Malfoy_. The dream - their friendship had felt so real. Surely that couldn't have come from his imagination alone … surely Malfoy had to be creating that, spinning that himself? And if he was, the million-Galleon question was why? What did Malfoy have to gain by wearing Harry down? What did he have to gain by extending a hand of friendship, even inside a fantasy?  
_Maybe he's showing you the way he wished it could have been_ , a voice whispered in his mind.

Harry considered that for a moment before rejecting it. The idea was ludicrous. Malfoy had nothing but sharp words and dismissal for him when he was awake. No, it had to be something deeper. For a moment he felt a chill of fear as he considered the possibility that Malfoy was on to him - thought he had been sent by the Aurors to uncover his operations. But no, he couldn't be. Harry had been so careful - emptying his mind of all facts relating to the case before he visited Malfoy. As far as Malfoy knew, Harry had gone there out of curiosity the first time, and the lure of his family and some better memories was what kept drawing him back.

Harry was brought out of his thoughts as Jeffries stood and the case board changed. Harry glanced over the information displayed, and then focussed his attention on Jeffries when he figured out there was nothing new. Hell, he probably knew the information up there better than anyone in the room, Jeffries included.

'Our surveillance has been long-distance and covert,' Jeffries was saying, and Harry startled slightly, leaning forward to catch all the details. He hadn't known there had been surveillance. Suddenly he was even more glad that he had taken the precaution of using glamours and Polyjuice each time he approached the bar. So long as the Aurors knew, he was just another punter coming for a good time.

Jeffries waved his wand and Harry clenched his fists, digging his nails into his palms to stop himself from giving anything away. A series of two dozen headshots had appeared on the board, including three of the glamours Harry had used when entering the bar. He felt a wave of dizziness flow over him, leaving him feeling queasy, at how close he had come to discovery. The thought and the sickness that came with it pulled him up short and he frowned. What was the worst that could happen if he were discovered? He could be sacked, but he hated his job, so what did that matter?

 _They could stop you from going back,_ a voice whispered, and Harry felt a chill run through him, followed by a hot anger. They had _no right_ to stop him. He gritted his teeth and forced himself to focus.

'From what we understand,' Jeffries was saying, 'there's another layer within the bar - something we're not seeing. The number of patrons who move in and out of the space is not equivalent to the number we see frequenting the public bar space.'  
There were interested murmurings and the flick of quills around the room at these words. Harry barely refrained from rolling his eyes. He'd figured that out within an hour of making contact with the place. It had taken Jeffries a week. Two, if you counted his botched raid.

'Auror Barclay will approach the location as an undercover agent. She will be playing the part of a patron and once inside will attempt to ascertain where the other patrons are going and what they are doing. If Malfoy is using extension charms, portkeys or Floo connections to take people into another space, we _will_ find out about it.'

Harry attempted to swallow his laughter, but a strange sort of choking noise came out. He turned it into a cough when a number of people turned to look at him. Ron included. He waved them away, needing to hear what Jeffries had to say next.  
Jeffries glared at him for a moment, just long enough to assure Harry, if he didn't already know it, that the grudge hadn’t been forgotten.

'Barclay will make contact on Sunday night. That seems to be the most highly frequented time.' Jeffries looked around the room at the assembled Aurors. 'Any questions?'  
Harry had a sudden urge to ask just what the fuck day of the week today was, but he squashed it.

Back at his desk, he checked his calendar. It was Tuesday. Fuck. Barclay would make contact in five days' time. Harry didn't know if he had enough yet, if he was close enough to Malfoy to get him to let something slip. He thought for a moment about what he needed to do, and in what order. It was getting harder and harder to keep things straight. He rubbed at his eyes. He would go home first. Go home and update his board. Then he could take the precautions he needed and head to the bar. That would be the best thing to do.

Malfoy was in the back room, as he always was when Harry entered.  
'Don't you ever sleep?' Harry blurted. The question had been playing on his mind for a while.  
'Hello, Potter,' Malfoy said in response. 'What do you want to bother me about today? More happy schoolboy dreams of better days?'  
Harry lost track of his question in the face of such an unjust accusation. 'You're the one that keeps making up the scenes,' Harry said, gesturing over the room.

Malfoy shook his head with a look that made Harry feel like he knew absolutely nothing, then he motioned Harry to his bed. It was empty again. It was always empty. Harry was starting to wonder if Malfoy was keeping it clear for him. There was a bottle of Dreamless sitting on the pillow. Harry picked it up and downed it as he slid onto the bed.

His last words before the darkness were, 'Surprise me, smartarse.'

He felt the tail end of a jerk of Apparition and he cracked into place in front of an unfamiliar house. No, he shook his head, what was he thinking. It wasn't an unfamiliar house. It was his house, the one he and Gin had brought so long ago, 'round the corner from mum and dad's. She'd been happy enough not to be located within walking distance to the Burrow, and they'd both thought Godric's Hollow would be a good place to raise kids.

He walked in the door, hanging his St Joseph's robes up on the hook and dropping his satchel of papers on the side table. He'd do his grading later, after the kids were tucked up in bed. Just as he thought that, there was a scream and a thud from upstairs, followed by a roar and running footsteps, then a peal of shrieking laugher. Harry rolled his eyes and went into the kitchen.  
As he thought, his mum was at the kitchen table with Lucy, feeding her spoonfuls of the pumpkin mush that was all she would eat right now.

Harry bent to press a kiss to his mum's hair and then to Lucy's.  
'Hello, poppet. Have you been a good girl for Nanna Potter today?'  
Lucy just smiled at him, waving chubby fists as she dribbled pumpkin down her chin.  
'I see dad's got the boys ready for bed,' Harry said with a wry smile as there was another particularly shrill scream from upstairs.  
His mum laughed. 'You know we're only over once a fortnight. He misses them. They remind him of you when you were a boy.'

Harry felt a glow of warmth at her words.  
'I'll put dinner on. Do you want a cuppa or something?'  
His mum shook her head and went back to tempting Lucy into eating by whooshing the pumpkin-laden 'broomstick' past her nose.

Harry pulled a few things out of the fridge and chopped them quickly into the pressure cooker, and then went up to tell the ruckus that they needed to start getting ready to eat.  
His oldest, Jake, barrelled past him with a quick, 'Hi Dad.'  
Archie and Harry's dad were much slower in coming. Harry had to laugh when he saw why. His dad had transfigured his ears into an elephant's and his nose into a trunk and he was carrying Archie on his back as he shuffled along the hallway.

'What have they conned you into today?' he asked with a smile. His dad looked up at him, but rather than speaking, he just trumpeted his trunk. Archie let out a high-pitched squeal of laughter.  
'Dumbo!'  
Harry looked at his dad, who just shrugged. Must be something he'd picked up at the Muggle preschool they were going to a few days a week. Luckily, Ginny had been able to get a Floo connection nearby so that she could send them to the same one on the weeks when the kids were with her.

'Come on,' he said, lifting Archie off his dad's back. The boy complained for a moment, but when Harry offered him a piggyback ride down the stairs, he clung on, skinny arms around Harry's neck as he bounced his way down the stairs.

Twenty minutes later and Harry finally had them all assembled, with food on plates. His dad now had Lucy on one knee as he scooped his own food in and tried to keep her hands off his plate. His mum was sitting between Jake and Archie and talking to Jake about what he thought about going to 'Big Boy School' next year.

Harry looked around at the five of them, feeling something hot and tender well up in his chest. All of a sudden he had a lump in his throat, and he was filled with the thought, branding itself across his mind, _It should have been like this. I should have got to_ have _this_.

He didn't know if it was tears that made the scene shimmer in front of him, or Malfoy pulling him out of it, but he reached out desperately as it began to fade, trying to fix the details in his mind, remember the faces of his children.

Malfoy showed no signs of approaching as Harry roused from the dream, and he wasn't particularly in the mood to talk. It was still daylight, just approaching dusk, so he set his glamour again and walked slowly down the street, mind lost in memories of his family - his children. Archie had looked just like him, same messy black hair, same green eyes. He felt something in his chest pull at the memory of Archie's arms around his neck, his tiny body, wrapped trustingly around him. He felt - still - like some missing piece of him had been found, like the emptiness inside of him, the wrongness, had been filled, made whole.

This - _this_ \- was what he'd been missing, and the thought sent grief flooding through him. He wished he were more aware in the dreams - more able to direct his actions. He would have held his kids close, breathed them in and told them he loved them and that he would never let them go.  
_They're not real_ , a part of him protested, but Harry pushed it far down, his mind filled with images of them, with the perfect world they'd inhabited together.

\-----

He was halfway back to the bar at six the next morning, after a restless night filled with fragments of dreams and an unfulfilled yearning, when he realised he'd forgotten to check his case board. He hesitated, but then thoughts of those tiny arms wrapped around him, the mischief in his other boy's eyes, the idea that he could have them again - see them again, filled his mind, and he changed his course. He was too tired to walk and it was taking too long. He stepped into a gap between two buildings and Apparated.

He staggered when he landed and it took a moment before everything stopped spinning. With a frown, he tried to think about whether he'd eaten before he left that morning. He didn't think he had. Maybe the night before? He shook his head, remembered at the last moment to set his glamour and walked the last block to the bar.

Malfoy was standing in the doorway to the dream room, as Harry had taken to calling it in his head. His arms were crossed and the look on his face was forbidding.  
'No, Potter,' he said, before Harry had even spoken.  
Harry looked up at him, mouth slack with surprise, mind struggling to catch up with the words he was hearing.

'What do you mean, no?' he said, trying to slip past.  
Malfoy blocked him easily, pushing him back. Harry staggered again and felt a wave of dizziness come over him.  
Malfoy waved at him as if it were self-evident. 'This is why. You're dreaming too much. It's dangerous.'

Harry shook his head, trying to clear it. For the first time in days, Harry felt angry at Malfoy - angry that he could hold this over him - could get to say whether Harry saw his parents and his kids. Malfoy didn't know what he needed. Didn't know what was good for him.  
'I'm fine,' he muttered, stepping forward again. 'What do you care anyway?'

Malfoy huffed in annoyance. 'I care because this is my bar, and I don't want to deal with you dropping dead in it.'  
The words ricocheted through Harry's mind for a moment before they registered, and then he looked up, mind abruptly sharpening.  
'I could die?' he asked, choosing his words carefully. He needed to know. This was the moment he would find out, he knew.

Malfoy frowned at him as if the answer was obvious. 'Look at you. How long since you've eaten? How long since you've slept properly? How long since you've thought about something other than the dreams?'  
Harry let the questions wash over him. They weren't important. He knew what he was doing.

He looked past Malfoy, into the smoke-filled room. 'Has that happened before?' he asked, trying to keep his tone light. 'Have people died, from dreaming?'  
Malfoy closed up, face shuttering. 'Go home, Potter,' he said instead. 'Rest. Go to work, for fuck's sake. Go and live.'

The words shattered Harry's focus on the implications of what Malfoy had been telling him and brought his attention back to what he would be losing. His children. He would lose his children if Malfoy turned him away. He stepped forward, shaking his head.  
'Please, Malfoy,' he said, heedless of the pleading tone. This wasn't a game anymore, to see if he could beat Malfoy. It wasn't a case. He suddenly didn't care what he had to say or do. 'Please. Draco. They're my kids. My family. I need to see them again.'  
Malfoy opened his mouth as if to argue, as if to deliver the message a part of Harry's mind had been trying to tell him all night. _They're not real._

His eyes searched Harry's face for a long moment and Harry was terrified he was going to say no. His eyes flicked up and down Harry's body - his leg where it jiggled uncontrollably, his arms, wrapped tightly around himself, as though they were the only thing holding him together.  
Harry saw a flash of something pass through Malfoy's eyes, too quickly to read, then he nodded. 'Alright,' he said with a sigh. 'I'll put you in the dream if you eat first. A full meal.' Malfoy glared at Harry, making it clear the words were a demand and not a request. He nodded, eagerly, barely listening, full of relief that the words weren't a denial.  
'You will also sleep afterwards.' Malfoy continued. 'Proper sleep, for the rest of the day.'

Harry was pushing past Malfoy before he had even finished speaking, his breath coming quickly as his anticipation rose. Malfoy grabbed him by the collar, jerking him backwards and he stumbled, nearly falling.  
'Food first.' His tone brooked no argument.

Harry nodded, as he wondered how long he would have to wait outside for before it looked like he'd gone to eat something.  
Malfoy's face darkened as though he'd just picked the thought out of Harry's mind, and Harry realised with a start he probably had. He wondered if his shields were up.  
'Fuck's sake, Potter,' Malfoy said. He stepped out of the dream room and closed the door behind him. Then he tightened his grip on the neck of Harry's jumper, waited a moment and re-opened the door.

Instead of the hazy room of dreams, Harry could see a neat, basic kitchen. He stared at it, the thought registering in his mind that this was important - that this was something he should be asking about, but it was a dim thought, buried deep underneath the smell of his baby daughter's hair and his smiles at his eldest son's pranks.

Malfoy held the door open and shoved him inside.  
Harry went in, slumping down at the table, foot jiggling as he wondered how long this would take. Now that he was here - now that he'd walked through the same damned _doorway_ , he was even more determined to be immersed in the dream.  
Malfoy moved easily around the kitchen and in a moment had placed a ham and cheese sandwich and a glass of milk in front of him.

Harry looked down at it, unimpressed, before looking up at Malfoy.  
'I'm not five,' he said, pushing the milk away. 'Do you have coffee?'  
Malfoy pushed the milk back towards him.  
'You're so wired, you're vibrating, Potter. You don't need coffee. Now drink your damned milk.'

Harry opened his mouth to argue, then shut it after a moment as he realised all an argument would do would be to delay the moment he could get inside the right room.  
He picked up the sandwich and took a bite, nearly gagging as the flavours, mild though they were, hit his tongue.  
He took a sip of milk and forced himself to chew and swallow.

Slowly, one methodical bite at a time, he finished the sandwich and the glass of milk. The whole time, Malfoy stood there, watching him, face expressionless.  
By the time he'd finished, Harry felt less dizzy, less like his thoughts were ricocheting around his mind.  
He looked around the room, faint curiosity stirring in him.

'Do you live here?' he asked.  
Malfoy rolled his eyes. 'It is beyond me why they made you an Auror, Potter,' he said with a sigh. 'Of course I fucking live here. I didn't just transport us into some random person's house so I could make you lunch.'  
Harry let the words flow over him. He was so far past being baited by something Malfoy said.  
'Does the door work the same, then? For every room in the house?'

Malfoy's gaze sharpened and he stepped forward, collecting Harry's plate and glass and placing them on the sink.  
'Right. That should keep you going another few hours, at least,' he said. 'Out.'  
Harry would have protested - even a week ago he would have told Malfoy to go fuck himself five ways to Friday. Now, he merely did what he was told. There was no other option.

\---

He woke to a fresh spring breeze, dappled sunlight and the sound of children's laughter. Harry stretched his arms along the back of the park bench he was sitting on and looked out across the playground, making sure he could still see each of the kids. Lucy was happy in the sandpit and he knew she'd stay there for hours. Jake was performing increasingly convoluted and dangerous stunts on the monkey bars. Harry considered casting a subtle cushioning charm, just in case. 

Archie was in the pirate ship, captaining it, if the faint chatter Harry could hear as the boy talked to himself was anything to go by. He smiled at the three of them, thinking he might take them into Diagon for ice-cream later. It had been a while since he'd visited Fortescue's. 

He was about to get up and go sit with Lucy, making sandcastles, when he saw a figure approaching from the corner of his eye.  
He looked over and his eyes widened with surprise.  
'Draco?' he said, sitting up straighter and watching Draco Malfoy walk towards him. He hadn't seen Draco in years, not since graduation, when he'd moved to France. They'd exchanged a few letters in the first year, but then both got caught up in work and family and -

Harry looked down at the small, blond figure clutching Draco's hand, peering out shyly from behind his leg. The boy looked to be about Archie's age and was the spitting image of his dad.  
Harry pushed himself to his feet, moving forward to greet Draco properly.  
Draco put out his hand with a smile, but Harry pulled him into a hug. Propriety be damned. Harry hadn't seen him in five years.

Draco tensed slightly but after a moment let out a breath and then reached up to wrap one arm around Harry in turn.  
Harry let go after a moment, stepping back to look Draco in the eyes.  
'What are you doing here?' he asked, still not over his shock at the chance meeting.  
To his surprise, Draco flushed slightly. 

'Actually, I, ah, ran into your father and he mentioned you would be here, with the children,' he said, looking out over the playground.  
The mention of children brought Harry back to himself and he dropped to a knee, looking Draco's son in the eyes.  
'I am very sorry to be so rude,' he said with a smile. 'My name is Harry. I'm your dad's friend. What's your name?'

The boy looked up at his dad for approval and Draco nodded, then he put out a tiny hand.  
'My name is Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy,' he said, a hint of a lisp in his voice. 'And I am four. Pleased to meet you.'  
Harry had to bite his cheek to stop himself from laughing as he took the solemn Scorpius' hand.  
'Pleased to meet you as well, Scorpius. My son, Archie, is four as well, and I think you two would get on very well.'

Scorpius' eyes lit up and he looked over at the playground with more than a hint of longing.  
Harry looked up at Draco, a smile on his face. 'Is it okay if they play together?'  
Draco nodded his agreement, giving his own pleased smile and they introduced the boys.  
Within two minutes, the pirate game had exploded tenfold, and space pirates were undertaking some convoluted mission Harry didn't think he had a hope of understanding.

He walked with Draco back to the bench and they sat side by side, watching their children play.  
Harry broke the silence. 'It's good to see you,' he said, smiling again. 'I've missed you.'  
Draco snorted, but Harry could see the faint blush in his cheeks at the words.  
'I'd forgotten how incredibly Gryffindor you are, Potter,' he said.

Harry shrugged. 'We play to our strengths. You're back for good?'  
Draco nodded, still watching his son. 'His mother and I … didn't work out. She was the main thing keeping us in France. I … I missed home.'  
It had been a long time, but Harry thought he could still read the subtext in Draco's words, at least he hoped he could. He leaned his arm against Draco's, pleased when Draco didn't pull away, just glanced down at the touch and smiled a small smile.

Hours later, as Harry watched Draco and Scorpius walk away after a day spent talking, playing with the kids and sharing ice-cream, a feeling of happiness rose in him that was so bright it hurt.

\----

Harry woke slowly, clinging to the fragments of the dream. Draco gestured to the green door and Harry made his way out of the dream room slowly, his whole body feeling stiff and sore, his mind still half in the dream. 

Once Draco had closed it behind them and they stood in the empty bar, Harry turned to him, pausing him with a light touch on his arm. Something was nagging at his mind. Something important.  
'Scorpius?' he asked quietly. 'Is he real?'  
Pain flashed across Draco's face, so clear that Harry felt like he was looking into a mirror.  
'He's real to me,' was his only response before his face shuttered, as though he'd said something he didn't mean to and now regretted.

Harry felt the words echo thought him and he stood, rooted to the spot, staring at Draco as he turned away, pulling his arm from Harry's grip with a jerk. He opened the peeling green door to the dream room again, gesturing Harry forward with a sharp, impatient movement. Harry watched him for a moment longer, only slightly surprised as he turned to see the doorway now opened to a small bedroom, neat and bright.

'Bathroom is there,' Draco said brusquely, waving his hand off to one side. 'Room is warded. You should be able to sleep here without nightmares. When you wake, let yourself out the front door.'  
He turned to leave, not meeting Harry's eyes.

Harry wanted to tell him to wait, wanted to tell him he understood. But he didn't. He just stood and watched Draco walk away.


	4. Losing

Harry didn’t have nightmares, but it was still only a few hours later when he woke in the room Draco had provided him. He got up and showered, letting the hot water fall over him as he closed his eyes. His mind drifted, snatches of thoughts and fragments of dreams flowing through it.

What was he doing? He thought he'd been clear but it was all getting so messed up in his head. Catching Malfoy, solving the case, giving a shit about the missing people … it was all starting to mean less and less. He stayed under the spray for a long time, trying to drag himself into some sort of clarity - some sort of direction. Thoughts of the day he'd just had - just dreamt - kept intruding. He couldn't stop thinking about how right it had felt, how natural, to watch his son play with Draco's or to reach out and wipe a smudge of ice-cream from the corner of Draco's lips, bringing it to his mouth and smiling as Draco's eyes went dark and he looked away.

He shivered when he got out of the shower and the cold air hit his skin. He wrapped the towel around himself, huddling into its warmth. Then he dried himself slowly, wincing at the aches of his body as he bent and moved. He realised, as he picked his t-shirt up to slip it over his head, that his clothes were days old, and smelled it. He wrinkled his nose and considered for a moment looking through the drawers in the room or asking Draco if he had spares. The thought made him snort in wry laughter. It was getting too easy to forget that they weren't friends outside the dream - that the Draco he was seeing was a completely different person from the Malfoy in the real world.

He cast a Tempus when he was dressed and was surprised to see it was six at night. He frowned and felt a faint stir of guilt at the thought he'd missed work again. He should go home, get changed. Rest. But even the thought of those activities sent a stab of anxiety through him. He didn't want to leave. 

He opened the bedroom door and was unsurprised to see the bar in front of him. He turned as soon as the door had shut behind him to touch the dragon and enter the dream room. Malfoy seemed resigned to his presence, waving Harry to his alcove with a distracted gesture. He was having a conversation with a man Harry vaguely recognised. He squinted through the smoky air, eyes widening when he realised it was Victor.

Victor seemed to be arguing with Malfoy, eyes wide and panicked, but Malfoy continued to speak to him slowly and emphatically, until at last his shoulders slumped and he nodded. He turned away from Malfoy, walking through the room and Harry was surprised to see that his face was blotchy, his eyes red, as though he'd been crying.

Harry watched him until he left the room, then sat on the edge of his bed. The room was more empty than usual. Maybe? He wasn't sure. He didn't know if it was just the time of night. It was, what? Wednesday night? Thursday? Maybe that was just a quiet time for the bar.

Malfoy interrupted his thoughts as he walked over, crossing his arms and staring down at Harry.  
'Don't you have a home to go to, Potter?'  
Harry ignored him. 'What's wrong with Victor?'  
Malfoy's face became less impressed. 'None of your business. You slept, now go home.'  
Harry crossed his arms. 'I don't want to.'

Malfoy raised one unimpressed eyebrow and Harry flushed slightly, knowing exactly what he looked like. Malfoy's next words confirmed that. 'Anyone ever tell you that you look like your four year old when you do that?'  
Harry couldn't help but smile at the thought of Archie, even though it was tinged with pain. 'Since no one but you knows he exists,' he said, rolling his eyes, 'no, they haven't.' He sighed, dropping his arms. 'I want to stay, please? Just for a bit. It's late. There's no one at home. The house is cold and empty. I've missed work and I just slept. A few hours and then I'll go. Promise.'

Malfoy rolled his eyes in turn. 'You really are something else, Potter. Say I let you stay. What then? What sweet dreams does your little heart desire?' Something flickered in Malfoy's eyes and a slow smile came over his face. It made him look, just for a moment, like the boy Harry had flown with, so long ago. 'No, never mind, I have just the thing.'  
He Accioed a bottle of Dreamless and Harry lay down as he was bidden, curious to see where Draco would take him.

He was headed home after a long day at work - a long week, really. He'd been working hard on a case all month and he had a feeling they'd finally cracked it. Ron had come in with the final piece of the puzzle and all they had left to do was put it together and draw out the arrests.

The trip from the Apparition point to his door at Grimmauld wasn't long, and Harry liked the walk. It gave him a moment to wind down from work, to let go of everything and to clear his mind for the evening ahead.  
'Hey babe,' he called, as he stepped in the door.  
'In here,' came the voice from the kitchen. Harry smiled and kicked off his boots, lining them up neatly and hanging his Auror robes over the peg by the door, giving them a quick flick to straighten them.

A delicious smell filled the air and Harry breathed it in appreciatively, following his nose to the figure at the stovetop, humming the words to some obscure song as he tilted a board, sending a cascade of mushrooms, bacon and onion into the pan.  
Harry stepped up behind him, putting his hands on Draco's hips as he pressed a kiss into his neck. Draco tilted his head to give Harry better access, but didn't stop his humming, picking up a wooden spoon to stir the ingredients in.  
Harry nipped at his neck lightly, rubbing his cheek against the shaved undercut of Draco's hair as he breathed him in. Draco arched back into him for a moment and then pushed him away with a huff. 'Set the table, you animal. This is almost done.'

Harry laughed, pressed another kiss to Draco's neck and then turned to the cupboard, pulling out what he needed.  
'You want a white with that?' he asked, looking at the wine rack.  
Draco nodded. 'There should be a pinot grigio in there. That would go well with the carbonara.'  
Harry spotted it and cancelled the cooling charm on it, pulling it from the rack.

'Sell anything interesting today?' he asked, after they were seated. He lifted a forkful of the pasta to his mouth.  
Draco shrugged. 'That crazy old woman was back. Remember the one I told you about? Bagshot?'  
Harry shook his head, chewing and swallowing, 'No, I told _you_ about her. She lives near mum and dad's place.'  
Draco waved a hand dismissively. 'Whatever. Anyway, she was back again today, looking for more snake pins. Always the snakes with that one.'

Harry smiled and scooped more pasta onto his fork as he listened to Draco rant about one customer or another and their strange interests and requests. He'd thought, when they'd first started dating five years earlier, that Draco was unhappy with his job. He'd grown, quite quickly, to enjoy the way Draco brought his customers to life through his complaints, dramatically imbuing them with probably far more cunning, intelligence and vice than they actually possessed.

Harry cleared up after dinner, rolling up his sleeves to wash the plates. He let his mind wander into thoughts of the surprise trip to France he had coming up next month. He knew Draco didn't get across to see his mother nearly as much as he wanted to, especially since his father had passed. And it had been a while since they went away, just the two of them. The last few trips they'd taken had been with Ron and Hermione and Pansy and Blaise respectively, which had been nice, but there was something about being away with just Draco that was special.

Harry finished up, brewed the tea and went upstairs to find Draco. He was curled up on the end of the couch in front of the crackling fire, a book open in front of him. The sitting room had always been Harry's favourite, ever since his first visit to Draco's house six years earlier. He liked the whole house. It was light and airy and he had felt at home the very first time he walked in, but there was something about the sitting room that just spoke of warmth and comfort and home.

Harry smiled, placing Draco's tea on the side table and sitting at the other end of the couch. Without a word, Draco stretched his long legs out, putting his feet in Harry's lap. Harry put his hands on them, looking expectantly at Draco.  
He continued to read for a minute longer, though Harry could tell he was faking it. His eyes were barely moving.

Finally he huffed a sigh, pushing one of his feet into Harry's hands as he laid down his book.  
'Do I have to beg you for it, Potter?'  
Harry's smile widened into a grin and he saw something flicker in Draco's eyes in return.  
'Couldn't hurt,' he said, as he dug his thumb into the arch of Draco's foot, rubbing a firm stroke back up it.  
Draco's eyes fluttered for a moment, his only concession to the pleasure, and then he picked up his book. 'Carry on, then.'

Harry reached for his wand for a moment, so his latest letter from Sirius - who seemed to be in Egypt currently - floated in front of him, then he returned his hands to Draco's feet, rubbing slowly over them as they sat quietly together in front of the softly popping fire.

\----

He woke from the dream with a feeling of peace and contentment flowing through him. For a few minutes, it managed to resist the confusion and disbelief that crept in against it, the more Harry thought about what had just happened.

Malfoy wasn't in the room when Harry sat up. There were only two others, aside from himself. He pushed himself from his bed, staggering slightly as he stood. He righted himself quickly and moved back into the main bar, then he turned and looked back at the peeling green door. He wondered how Malfoy did it - made the door show him the different rooms. He closed his eyes and gripped his wand, envisioning the kitchen.

When he opened them he turned the handle, swinging the door wide. He felt his anticipation shrivel inside him as he looked back into the smoky dream room. He closed the door and gripped his wand again, trying to remember if he'd seen Malfoy do a spell or whisper anything.

'Don’t hurt yourself, Potter.'  
Malfoy's drawling words interrupted his thoughts and Harry flashed back, for a moment, to Draco's dry wit as he told stories about his customers over dinner.  
Harry's eyes flew open and Malfoy stood before him, the green door shut at his back. For a moment all Harry could think was that Draco looked _wrong_. His Draco was healthy, fit, always dressed in sharp, tailored clothes. He wouldn't be seen dead in tattered robes, with unwashed hair and with that unhealthy cast to his skin. Then reality came slamming back down. This wasn't his Draco. He didn't have a Draco.

'What the fuck are you playing at?' he growled, taking a step forward so they were chest to chest.  
Malfoy didn't react other than to look down at him. 'I'm not playing at anything, Potter. Except pity, maybe. Bit pathetic of you, to go home to a dark, cold, lonely house night after night. Bit pathetic of you to tell me that, actually,' Malfoy mused, lips twisting into a sneer. 'Thought you could use something better.'  
Harry felt those words strike at something deep within him. He was so fucking _sick_ of being pitied. He saw it in the eyes of almost everyone around him. Malfoy - at least Malfoy - hadn't given enough of a shit about him to _pity_ him.

'Fuck you,' Harry spat, as the anger and humiliation rose higher. 'I don’t need your damned pity.' He stepped back, turned away from Malfoy, forcing himself to leave. To leave before Malfoy said something else - did something else. A part of him protested. Draco wouldn't do this - wouldn't hurt him on purpose. It had to be a misunderstanding. They had their fights sometimes, that was normal.

Harry crushed the voice down, forcing it to shut up. That Draco wasn't fucking _real_. He slammed the door of the bar behind himself, just remembering to put his glamour up before he exited. 

From the alley, he Apparated home, knowing what he needed as soon as he walked in the door. He sent an owl to Dean and then collected a bottle of Polyjuice. He didn't even grimace at the taste as he let the change wash over himself willingly. He didn't want to be Harry Potter anymore. His new body was hard and strong and tall and confident. Everything he knew he wasn't.

He walked in the door of Liquid Luck twenty minutes later as Erik. He squinted for a moment, disorientated. Gaudy gold light flashed all around him from the solid gold ornamentation and the sound of the bass thumped through him. But it only took him a second to adjust and he made straight for the bar. He caught the eye of one of the bar keepers who knew him by sight and held up three fingers.

The man nodded and a minute later he had three shots of Firewhisky in front of him. He handed over his Gringotts token for the start of a tab and then downed the shots, one after the other, blowing the smoke up into the air as he turned to look over the heaving dancefloor.  
Liquid Luck was huge. A multi-level playhouse. It had been a while since he'd come to play.

He collected and downed another two shots and headed to the dance floor. Dean intercepted him halfway there. He was dressed much less flashily than he normally did, as thought he'd hurried over. He caught Harry by the arm, leaning in to shout to be heard over the music.  
'Where the fuck have you been?'  
Harry pulled back to give him an unimpressed look. He and Dean had an agreement. They went out, they had fun, they got wasted, they pulled and they went home. They didn't fucking keep tabs on each other.

Harry's brain began to tick again and he narrowed his eyes. _Ron_.  
He leaned in to shout in Dean's ear.  
'You can tell your new best mate I don't need a fucking babysitter,' he said, before he pushed Dean away, moving between twisting and heaving bodies as he entered the dance floor. He didn't bother looking over his shoulder. He knew Dean wouldn't follow.

He let the music and the alcohol flowing through him direct his body as he moved and swayed in time with the masses of people around him. It wasn't long before he felt hands on his hips, strong and sure. He didn't open his eyes, he just tilted his head back and slowed his movement. He felt a hard body fit itself against his back and lips brush against his neck. He shivered, feeling arousal throb through him in time with the thump of the bass. For a moment, in his mind, those lips were Draco's and he felt the ghost of Draco's body against his, but he pushed the thought away, angrily.

The hands on his hips pulled him into a dirty grind, one slipping up his shirt and scraping nails lightly over his stomach. Then the mouth was back at his neck, teeth grazing his skin before a searing hot kiss was pressed against him. Harry's mouth dropped open in a gasp and he pushed himself back against the body behind him. He wanted to lose himself in this. To forget everything else.

In response, the hand at his hip pulled them closer together so that he could feel the hard press of the other man's arousal against his arse. He ground back into it and felt the bite of teeth at his neck. Harry put his hands up, tangling one in the silky smooth strands of the other man's hair. It was long enough to grip and pull him closer, to encourage him not to stop. For a moment the texture reminded him of Draco's hair and he had a flash of memory - his fingers buried in Draco's hair as their mouths met - 

The moan at his ear was loud enough that he could hear it over the music. Harry focussed on it. He wanted this. This was real. He wanted the freedom of a hook-up with a stranger - someone who had no idea who he was, and who he could have some fun with, just for tonight. He wanted to feel the man's mouth on his, press against him and get some relief for himself.

He pulled them apart, grabbing the man's hand and pulling him away, off the dance floor. The toilets were golden too, light flickering off every surface, searing into his brain. Harry didn't bother with what the man looked like, he just pulled them both into a cubicle, touched his wand and whispered the spells to prep himself before he shoved his pants down to his thighs.

His partner didn't seem to mind. He was inside and thrusting hard against Harry in moments, his pants and groans matching Harry's as Harry dropped a hand to his cock, stroking it in time with the fucking he was receiving. It was good. It was good but fuck, it wasn't enough. It wasn't -

Harry thought of Malfoy, standing in the doorway of the cubicle, watching him get fucked with that damned smirk on his face. He instantly felt his pleasure grow, burning through him. He pushed his arse back, with a grunted, 'Harder.' The man behind him complied, fucking him hard and fast. Harry didn’t want to - Gods he didn't want to - but he couldn't stop himself from picturing Draco, standing there, just metres away, watching him.

He jerked and cried out, his orgasm catching him almost by surprise as he spent himself against the gleaming golden wall. Through it all, he could feel Draco's eyes on him, hot and knowing.  
The man behind him was still going, pumping in and out. Harry had a mind to tell him to fuck off, but instead he just growled a, 'hurry up' over his shoulder, bracing his hands against the wall.

It wasn't until much later, when he was back home, staggering up the stairs, another six shots in him, that it occurred to him that he wasn't the only one who went home alone each night, and that just maybe Malfoy had been telling him more than he'd realised. 

\----

Harry was woken the next morning by a banging on his front door and Ron's voice yelling.  
'Harry? Harry! Are you in there? Open up.'  
He groaned and opened his eyes, regretting it as he felt nausea rise and the room began to spin. He swung his legs over the side of the bed, checked he at least had pants on and stumbled towards the bathroom, grabbing his wand to direct an unlocking charm at the front door as he did. He knew that tone in Ron's voice. The fucker would keep knocking until he got an answer.

Ron's noise cut off abruptly and Harry breathed a sigh of relief for small mercies. He pulled the doors to the bathroom cabinet open, shoving empty bottles and containers to one side before he grunted a pained thanks to whatever gods existed.  
He stood slowly, breathing against the pounding in his head as he clutched the hangover potion to his chest. He uncapped it and swallowed it in one, shuddering as the pain and nausea peaked for one agonising instant which felt like an hour. Then he sagged, looking down into the sink, breathing heavily, the bottle clutched in his fist.

'Where the fuck have you been?'  
Harry didn't look up, just let the bottle slip from his hand, clattering into the sink.  
'Dean needs to keep his mouth shut,' he said heavily, running the tap and bending over to rinse his mouth out.  
He stood and turned to face Ron at last. Ron blanched at the look of him, some of the anger leaving his face.

'You look like shit,' Ron blurted, stepping forward. 'What's wrong? What's going on?'  
'Nothing,' Harry said, pushing past him and back into the bedroom. 'Big night.'  
Ron reached out to put a hand on his arm. Harry stopped, but didn’t turn to look at him.  
'This is more than a big night, Harry. You look wrecked. You look -' His voice trailed off, but Harry could hear the unspoken words. He'd thought them himself when he accidentally caught a look in the mirror. _You look the way you did just after the war_.

'I'm fine,' Harry said, pulling his arm away. He felt absurdly grateful Ron let him. He moved into his bedroom and slipped into the first clothes he found, turning back to face Ron and forcing a smile onto his face.  
'Did you come to walk me to work? How nice.'  
Ron grimaced. 'I've already been to work. I came by because the last two times I have, you haven't been here and you haven't been answering my owls and Dean just owled me to say he saw you at a club last night and you looked really out of it. But yeah, we can go to work together if you like.'

Harry walked past him and down the stairs, flicking the coffee machine on.  
Ron followed him down and then hesitated in the doorway to the kitchen. 'About work. Robards has been looking for you too. I think he'll want to see you.'  
Harry waited for some sort of emotion to follow that pronouncement, but there was nothing. He grunted and poured himself a cup of coffee.  
'I don't think - well, he seems pretty pissed, Harry,' Ron began, but Harry cut him off.

'I can deal with Robards. I have for the last four years.' He cast his mind for anything to talk about but that prat. 'Bring me up to speed. What did I miss in the scintillating life of the Auror force?'  
Ron hesitated again, looking torn. Harry glanced at him, bringing his mug to his lips and taking a sip, sighing at the warmth of it. He'd been so cold lately.

'Spit it out,' Harry said.  
'Well, there's probably one case you'd care about,' he said, and Harry raised an eyebrow, waiting. 'Malfoy's,' Ron said. Harry felt his heart thump in his chest and he gripped the coffee cup tighter.  
'What's the latest?' he asked, forcing his voice to stay steady - mildly interested.

'They sent in the undercover agent - Barclay - last night,' Ron said, a frown on his face.  
Harry felt his mind racing. What day was it? That was supposed to be on Sunday. Wasn't it?  
'What day is it?' Harry blurted.  
Ron gave him a strange look. 'Friday. Tomorrow's the end of a twelve-day shift, which you've missed the majority of eight of the last days.'

'I thought the op was supposed to be Sunday?' Harry asked, aware his voice was rising but unable to stop it. _I thought I had more time_. 'What happened?' _What happened to Draco?_ he wanted to yell.  
Ron was looking at him as though he regretted even bringing up the subject.  
'Nothing happened. Place was a ghost town. She went in, had a few drinks and was the only person in the place all night. Apparently Malfoy spent the entire time sitting in the corner watching her like some creepy spider.'

Harry let out a sigh that sounded a little too much like relief and Ron's frown deepened. 'What've you been doing all week anyway?'  
Harry looked down at his coffee. 'I told you, I've been sick.'  
'You go out clubbing when you're sick, do you?' Ron's voice was sharp, and suddenly Harry had had enough.

He put the coffee cup down, hard, on the bench, heedless of the way it splashed over his hand.  
'Thanks for the visit, Ron,' he said. 'I should get to work. I've been away all week and my boss wants to ream me out for being a human being.' He gestured at the door, a clear indication that Ron should lead the way. 'Do you mind?'  
Ron opened his mouth as if to say something but then his shoulders slumped and he walked out of the room.

He turned to Harry on the doorstep of Grimmauld. 'I'm just worried about -'  
His words were cut off as Harry Apparated away.

He was in the office for fifteen minutes before he got the memo from Robards. 

_See me in my office at eleven._  
_G Robards_

He had half an hour. He tossed up whether he should go and have a smoke, but Ron's words came back to him. _Nothing happened. Place was a ghost town._ Jeffries wouldn't tell him anything, the prat, but he wondered if he could weasel it out of Barclay. She wasn't in her cubicle when he wandered over, and he glanced around, a new course of action already decided.

He ducked behind her partition and rifled through the papers on her desk, finding nothing. Then he pulled out her drawer, flicking through the folders one at a time until he found the one he was looking for. Harry glanced around again before he laid the folder on the desk, duplicating its contents quickly, before shrinking the pages down and slipping them into his pocket.

He'd just slipped the file back in the drawer and moved away when Barclay returned, looking surprised to see him.  
'Potter,' she greeted. 'I thought you were off sick?'  
'I was,' he said, wincing as he realised he didn't have to inject a raspy weakness into his voice. 'On the mend now, though. I heard the Malfoy case was a bust?'  
Barclay hesitated for a moment, then sat on the edge of her desk, tucking a strand of long black hair behind her ear.

'It was the strangest thing,' she said. 'I don’t think he pegged me for an Auror, but he didn’t show me the slightest bit of hospitality. Couldn't have cared less if I was there or not. I have no idea how the place stays open. I was there almost five hours and nothing moved.'  
Harry bit his lip to stop a grin from spreading across his face at the memory of his first visit and the equally icy reception.

'Weird,' he agreed. 'So the op is off?'  
'No.' Barclay shook her head. 'I'll be back again tonight. Start to build up some familiarity, turn myself into a patron. A place like that, something more than just drinks has to be going on. I need to be there long enough that he offers it to me, too.'

Harry almost laughed in her face, a strange sort of bubbling joy rising in him. He knew exactly what Malfoy offered, and somehow he couldn't imagine the straight-laced Auror Barclay taking it.  
'Well, good luck with it,' he said, glancing up at the Tempus on the wall. 'I have to go. Robards wants to see me.'  
A strange look flitted across Barclay's face for a moment before she smiled. 'See you.'

Harry didn't bother to knock, or to shut the door behind him. He walked into Robards' office, and dropped into the chair in front of his desk.  
Robards looked up from whatever he was writing and his eyes flicked over Harry's appearance. He frowned heavily and set his quill aside, linking his fingers together on the desk in front of him.

'What's going on, Potter?' he asked.  
Harry crossed his arms, putting his feet out in front of him. 'Everyone keeps asking me that,' he said.  
'We're concerned,' Robards said, leaning forward.  
Harry couldn't help the snort that left his mouth. _Ron_ might be concerned, but Robards had never given a shit. He'd made that perfectly clear when he protested against Harry being accepted into the Auror program to start with.

Robards' lips compressed into a hard line.  
'Auror Weasley says you've been sick,' Robards said, looking Harry up and down again. 'Based on your track record, I think I'd say that if you are, you've done it to yourself.'  
Harry stayed silent, arms crossed. There was no point in defending himself. Robards had made up his mind a long time ago.

What Robards was saying was true anyway. He _was_ sick. He'd known it for a long time, and he had no one but himself to blame for it. He wondered what Malfoy thought of him. He'd said Harry was a fuck-up, but then he'd let him come back, again and again. Malfoy had spun such sweet lies for him. Would he have done that if he thought Harry wasn't worth it? Harry frowned as he realised he hadn't even paid the last few times … he wondered why Malfoy hadn't mentioned it.

'I can't continue to look the other way,' Robards said, and Harry looked back up at him. 'A day here and there is one thing, but you've barely been at work. I've given you chance after chance. Pushed opportunities in front of you others would kill for, but you never took any of them -' Robards continued to talk, but Harry tuned him out, his mind returning to Draco, and the feeling he'd had as he left work - the satisfaction he'd had at knowing he was solving cases, working with Ron to make a difference. He focussed in on the feeling, turning it about, and wondering how he could have that again, what cases he would have to work to get that feeling of pride and accomplishment.

'What are you even doing here, Harry?'  
Harry looked up at Robards, blinking as he came back to himself. Abruptly, reality came crashing down and he remembered that the feeling had been a dream - a fantasy. He was never going to be given cases to work - was never going to achieve anything in the Auror force.  
His job - his real job - was a farce, just like so many things in his life.

'May I be excused?' he said, his tone flat.  
Robards stared at him, nonplussed, then he sighed, leaning forward.  
'Harry, you clearly hate it here. Those idiots in PR be damned; I want you to resign.'  
Harry's eyes jerked up and he felt something in his chest twist. Robards didn't want him. Had never wanted him. He didn't know why, after all those years, that should still hurt.

He pushed the pain away, pulling other memories around it. He focussed on his family. Love. Happiness. Connection. Purpose. He layered himself with brightness, until he felt like he'd created his own internal Patronus.  
After that, it was simple. He reached over and pulled a piece of parchment to himself, scooping up Robards' quill.

 _I quit_.  
_HP_

He threw it back on Robards' desk and shrugged out of his robes, leaving them in a pile on the floor and walked out. He didn't turn around once.

\----

When he got to the Apparition point, he paused, unsure where he wanted to go - where he could go. But when he made his choice, it felt inevitable. His anger at Draco had faded. Now he just needed to see him again.

He approached the bar under his glamour, trying to act like he had on any other day. Barclay's words ran through his mind again. _The place is a ghost town._  
He was only in there a moment before Malfoy came out of the green door, crossing his arms with a glare.  
'I thought you didn't need my pity,' he said, voice cold.

Harry refused to rise to the bait. 'I quit my job. Also, the woman with the long black hair who was in here last night was an undercover Auror. She'll be back tonight.'  
Malfoy's eyes widened and he stepped forward, grabbing Harry's arm and pulling him through the green door. When it had closed behind him and they were standing in the kitchen, Malfoy let go of him, shaking his head.  
'Fuck's sake, Potter. What if they have a listening charm in the bar? I _know_ she's a damned Auror, you git. Just like I knew you were when you showed up as that incredibly conspicuous dickhead.'

Harry looked at him, surprised. 'Why are you still here then?'  
Malfoy snorted and moved over to the kettle, filling it and putting it on the hob. 'Because I am more than capable of handling Aurors whose noses are too big for them.'  
Harry didn't say anything and after a moment Malfoy looked back over his shoulder. 'Sit down, will you? You make the place look messy.'

'Why are you so calm?' Harry asked, sitting automatically. 'You've been raided, you're under surveillance and you've had two visits from undercover Aurors.'  
Malfoy barked out a short laugh. 'I hardly think you count, Potter. Yours was the most inept attempt at undercover I've ever seen.'  
Harry bristled, 'I got into the dream room, didn't I?'  
Malfoy pursued his lips, humming thoughtfully. 'You did. I take it back, you're not _completely_ incompetent.'

Harry rolled his eyes, but a part of him felt a small bloom of warmth. Coming from Malfoy, that was practically a glowing endorsement. But Malfoy still hadn’t answered his question. Harry had his issues with Jeffries, but Barclay wasn't an idiot, and there was more and more focus coming onto this case. He remembered the papers he'd copied and shrunk down and pulled them out of the pocket of his jeans, belatedly glad he hadn't shoved them into his robes.

He put them on the table and unshrunk them, smoothing them out.  
Malfoy leaned over, eyes flicking over the pages, before he glanced away, dismissing them. Harry opened his mouth to argue with him - to make him see the danger.  
'I've shut the - what did you call it? The Dream Room,' Malfoy said, as he took a step back and leaned against the sink. 'None of my customers will be back short term. Maybe long term, depending on how long your friends hang about.'

'Not my friends,' Harry returned automatically, as he processed that. Then a more important thought occurred to him.  
'Why have you left the bar open, then? Why not disappear?'  
Malfoy raised an eyebrow at him. 'I'm not guilty of anything, Potter. I disappear, suddenly I am.'

Harry nodded. That made a strange kind of sense. Then his thought process ground to a halt as Malfoy's words registered.  
'Wait -' he could feel panic beginning to rise in him. 'Does that mean - can't I -?' He couldn't get the words out. _Can't I see my children? Can't I forget? Can't I have something - just one thing - that's not shit?_

Malfoy read the rising anxiety on his face and he sighed.  
'Calm down, Potter. As always, you are the exception to every rule.'  
Harry closed his eyes and breathed out a shaky breath. He wanted to say thank you, but didn't. He wanted to question _why_ Malfoy had decided not to cut him off, but he didn’t want to give him any reason to change his mind. 

Something else occurred to him, thinking about the case, something that had been niggling in the back of his mind.  
'Do you still have them?' he asked. 'My memories - the ones you bottled the first night I came?'  
Malfoy stared at him, silently for a long moment and Harry felt himself begin to get nervous. He hadn't released them, had he? Surely not. Harry would have heard about it.  
Then Malfoy turned back to the hob, lifting the kettle off as he muttered something Harry didn't catch.

'What was that?' Harry asked, half standing.  
Malfoy's shoulder slumped in a movement that looked like a sigh. 'I _said_ , I never bottled your damned memories,' he said, not turning around.  
Harry sat heavily back into his seat, relief and confusion warring in him. He wanted to be angry at Malfoy, for making him think he had a sword hanging over his head, and at the same time, something in him responded to the fact that Malfoy hadn't carried out his threat, for whatever reason.

Malfoy turned around, not meeting his eyes as he moved to the table and placed a cup of tea in front of Harry. Harry thought about challenging him - about pushing him to explain why he'd assumed Harry wouldn't go to the Aurors with what he knew, after that first visit. He wanted to, but he also didn't want to start a fight, didn't want to break the fragile thing that was growing between them.  
He picked up his cup and took a sip. The tea tasted weak and milky and he made a face.

'I'm not giving you coffee,' Malfoy said before he'd even spoken, seemingly happy to latch onto a change of topic. 'It's tea or nothing. And you need to bloody sleep again, by the looks of you. When did you eat last?'  
Harry shrugged, looking down at his ragged fingernails and picking at one. 'I had a hangover potion this morning,' he said, trying to make light of it.  
Malfoy's gaze sharpened and his eyes flicked over Harry, then he turned to the fridge. 

'You have a fridge,' Harry said, with belated surprise.  
'Yes,' Malfoy said, 'and a toaster and a microwave and a television. Any other genius observations you would like to make?'  
He pulled a few things out, and then there was the beep and hum of machines and a small bowl of spaghetti carbonara was sitting in front of him.

Harry closed his eyes and breathed it in. It smelled just like the dream. For a moment he expected to be transported into a different kitchen, a different life, but when he opened them, the Draco sitting opposite him was bitter and hard and had a look on his face that dared Harry to comment on the fact that he'd clearly made himself the meal he'd cooked for Harry in their dream.

Harry looked down at his bowl, twirling the pasta around his fork and bringing it to his mouth with a moan of pleasure.  
'You're actually good at this,' he said as he swallowed and scooped another forkful. It was rich and creamy, the pasta cooked perfectly. Harry couldn’t remember the last time he'd eaten something so good.  
Malfoy's eyes narrowed. 'I think you will find I am good at all sorts of things, Potter,' he said as he stood, busying himself with something at the sink. 'When you've finished, you should go home. I have a bar to run.'

Harry shook his head, suddenly determined not to leave.  
'They can't find these rooms?' he asked.  
Malfoy turned around, leaning back against the sink. He shook his head without saying anything.  
'Let me stay,' Harry said. 'Just for the night. If I go home, Ron will pitch a fit at me for quitting.'  
Malfoy hesitated before he huffed a sigh. 'Fine. I suppose you want some entertainment while you're here?'

Harry looked at him, unable to help the smile that crept over his face. Malfoy tried to make his tone uncaring, but Harry could hear the hint of interest that crept in.  
'Well, if you're offering,' he said.  
Malfoy jerked his chin at the bowl of half-eaten carbonara. 'Finish your lunch, and your tea.'

'Yes, dear,' Harry said, a hint of familiarity creeping into the words before he flushed and looked down at his food. That familiarity belonged to the Draco he lived with in the dream, the one who bossed him around and looked after him and always thought he knew what was best. It didn't belong to Malfoy.

Harry finished the meal quickly, enjoying the feeling of warm fullness in his belly. He stood and took his dishes to the sink, washing them and putting them on the rack automatically. When he turned around, Malfoy was watching him with a strange expression on his face. He turned abruptly and gestured towards the far side of the room, not the door Harry normally exited from.

Harry hesitated, looking at the green door and Malfoy sighed. Harry wondered how he managed to make his sighs so expressive. This one clearly communicated, _I don’t go in and out of my bar every time I want to get up for a drink in the night, you moron._  
Harry flushed as he realised that made sense. Whatever magic Malfoy had imbued his green door with, to be able to open to any room he chose, it made sense that the inner workings of his home weren't totally reliant on it.

They passed through a small living room that was neat, but reasonably bare, just a few books, a blanket thrown over the back of the couch and the telly on one wall. There were no photos, no personal items. Harry tried not to wince as he saw the similarities in the way he'd put Grimmauld Place together. It had been so much nicer when he lived there with Draco.

The next room they entered was a bedroom and Harry paused in the doorway, as he recognised it and a thought hit him.  
'Is this your room?' he asked, looking over at Malfoy.  
'There's Dreamless in the bathroom cupboard,' Malfoy said, ignoring the question, though Harry saw his cheeks pinken faintly. 'I'm sure you know the way. Take your shoes off before you lie down. The bed will reek enough of you when you're done. You don't need to muddy it up as well.'

Harry couldn't figure out which part of that statement to respond to first, the entirety of it swirling through him, sending a strange emotion fizzing in his chest, so he just did as he was told, crossing the room to the bathroom and fishing out the purple-filled bottle.

He kicked his shoes off, and considered for a crazy moment undressing down to his pants, but he pushed the idea away. That was ridiculous. That wasn't what this was. But somehow it was different - very different - to know that he was about to be laid out on Malfoy's bed, alone in his bedroom rather than a room full of others.

He glanced at Malfoy. Grey eyes met his in a kind of challenge he had never been able to resist. He sat on the bed, then laid back on the pillows, lifting the bottle to his lips.

As he felt the drowsiness begin to take over, Malfoy came to sit on the edge of the bed and Harry felt a soft touch down the side of his face.  
He blinked his eyes sleepily open, but Malfoy hushed him, that same light touch sending a strange feeling of comfort and care through him.

He almost didn't catch Malfoy's words, as the darkness dragged him under.  
'Let's see what you've been up to, shall we, Potter?'

Harry felt a sense of floating calm as he hung in the darkness. Then he felt the touch of Malfoy's mind against his, curiosity lurking as his memories were unspooled. Malfoy skipped past his scene with Robards. Harry got a hint of condescension sent Robards' way, then strangely anger flared briefly as Ron entered his house. It was gone in an instant as Malfoy continued to go back.

The memory stopped in a moment surrounded by golden light and harsh, panting pleasure. Harry felt something dark and ugly ripple over him and then the scene was spooling backwards again and he was in it.

Harry let the music and the alcohol flowing through him direct his body as he moved and swayed in time with the masses of people around him. He felt hands on his hips and tilted his head back. A hard body fitted itself against his back and lips brushed against his neck. He shivered, feeling arousal throb through him.

He was pulled into a dirty grind and a hand slipped up his shirt. Then the teeth were back at his neck, grazing his skin before a searing hot kiss was pressed against him. Harry gasped and pushed himself back. He wanted to lose himself in this. To forget everything else.

He could feel the hard press of a cock against his arse. He ground back into it and felt the bite of teeth at his neck again. Harry put his hands up, tangling one in the silky smooth strands of the other man's hair. It was long enough to grip and pull him closer, to encourage him not to stop. 

The moan at his ear was loud enough that he could hear it over the music. Harry focussed on it. He wanted the freedom of a hook-up with a stranger - just for tonight. He wanted to feel the man's mouth on his, press against him and get some relief for himself. He wanted to lose himself in feeling and to not feel, all at once.

Everything felt strangely comfortable, familiar, until he turned. He turned and saw grey eyes widen in surprise and a familiar mouth form the word, 'Potter?'  
Malfoy was frozen, his face shocked, his hands still on Harry's hips. They were so close that Harry could see the faintest of freckles dusting Malfoy's nose. Harry stared at him, surprise leaving him speechless. He hadn't seen Malfoy since sixth year - since they'd had a massive fight in the Hogwarts bathrooms and suddenly Malfoy had moved to France to finish school. That had been - that had been five years ago.

The moment seemed frozen in time. The music was pounding and all around them bodies were moving and writhing, but the two of them were still. Then Malfoy's eyes flicked down to his mouth, just for an instant, and Harry felt want throb through him. Slowly, deliberately, he moved closer. Not as close as they had been before, but close enough that he could feel Malfoy's body against his, hot and hard. 

Malfoy bit his lip and Harry brought his arms up slowly, half expecting Malfoy to push him away and disappear into the crowd. But he didn't. Instead Harry felt Malfoy's hands move slowly from his hips to his arse. He saw Malfoy's eyes darken with want and he knew - he _knew_ \- this wasn't going to be some casual thing he could just forget after tonight.

He knew it and still he pulled Malfoy's face down to his. Malfoy's mouth was hot and bitter. He tasted like whatever he had been drinking. His kiss was hard. There was no give in him and Harry immediately responded, opening his mouth to Malfoy's tongue and feeling desire flow through him. He closed his eyes and focussed on touch - on the feeling of Malfoy's body against his, on the movement of their mouths as they fought back and forth. Malfoy's hands on his arse were hard as well, gripping him and grinding him closer.

Harry moaned and Malfoy nipped at his lip, the sting of pain making Harry open his eyes. Malfoy's were so dark they were almost black when Harry met them and he jerked his head in a clear direction.  
Harry nodded. Yes. More was what he wanted, and he couldn't get that here.  
Malfoy smiled in approval and, to Harry's surprise, reached for his hand, linking their fingers together. Harry looked down at their hands under the golden light and smiled in return. They looked good together.

He made for the direction of the bathrooms, but Malfoy shook his head, pulling Harry close to yell in his ear.  
'My place.'  
His breath was hot and he followed the words with another biting kiss to Harry's neck. Harry groaned and leaned against him, putting his arms around Malfoy and pulling him close, grinding them together again. Malfoy sucked hard on his neck, and Harry knew he'd have a mark there tomorrow. He smiled as he tilted his head to the side, wanting more.

But Malfoy stepped back, a smirk on his face, as he pulled Harry towards the door. As soon as they were out of the crush of bodies, Malfoy pulled Harry close, and then he felt the sickening pull of Apparition. The moment they landed, Malfoy's mouth was on his again, and Harry's hands moved to Malfoy's shirt, fumbling with the tiny, slippery buttons. He growled into Malfoy's mouth and Malfoy laughed and then stepped back.

Harry let his hands drop to his sides and took a deep breath, trying to calm his racing heartbeat. They were in a small room, neat and clean. Something about it seemed familiar and Harry looked around with a frown. The thought left his mind as Malfoy deftly undid his buttons, sliding his shirt off his shoulders to pool on the ground. Harry pulled his own shirt over his head and let it drop. Malfoy's eyes moved over him in a gaze that was very clearly appreciative.

Harry's eyes were drawn by Malfoy's hands, deftly undoing his belt buckle and then his flies. He watched, unable to look away as Malfoy shimmied out of his tight jeans, standing naked, cock jutting in front of him. Harry licked his lips, but Malfoy took a step forward, dropping gracefully to his knees, as he opened Harry's jeans, pulling his cock out and pausing to look up at him.  
'You're going to want no one but me, after I'm done with you,' he said, his voice low and husky.

Harry felt Malfoy's grip around his cock, looked at the possessive heat in his eyes and shivered. He didn’t know how to say that he already felt that way, so he just dropped a hand to Malfoy's hair and urged him gently closer.  
He closed his eyes as he felt Malfoy's cleaning charm tingle over him. Then the sensation was replaced by the heat of Malfoy's mouth and he tipped his head back, fingers clenching in Malfoy's hair, pulling him closer.

Malfoy sucked back harder, tongue swirling as he worked his hand up and down Harry's cock in time with his mouth.  
Harry moaned at the feeling, unable to stop himself from jerking forward. Malfoy's mouth was relentless, bringing him to the edge harder and faster than he ever had in his life. Within a minute he was crying out and spilling down Malfoy's throat.

He looked down, embarrassed to have come so quickly, but Malfoy was licking his lips, looking up at Harry with a look of debauched pleasure on his face. Harry could see his cock bobbing, untouched between his legs, and he was about to offer to return the favour when Malfoy pulled his jeans the rest of the way off. Harry stepped out of them, and then let Malfoy pull him towards the bed. 

He lay down on his stomach, unresisting, as Malfoy knelt between his legs, pushing one up. He knew it exposed his arse, but he didn't care. It had been so long since he'd done this in a bed. So long since it had been more than a brief fumble or a quick fuck.  
Malfoy's hands were on his arse, and then his mouth was and Harry grunted in surprise, biting his lip at the slippery heat and the unfamiliar sensation. After a moment he spread his legs wider to give Malfoy access, and Malfoy hummed his appreciation, fingers tightening on Harry's arse cheeks.

Malfoy licked and sucked at him, tongue a delicious pressure as it worked at him. When Harry was panting in time with his movements, and could feel his cock beginning to stir back into life, Malfoy stopped, nipping lightly at his leg.  
'Do you like -' He kissed Harry's skin. 'This.' Another kiss. 'Potter?'

He licked again, a broad, wet stroke over Harry's arse, and Harry groaned.  
'Fuck, yes,' Harry gasped, pushing back into him. 'So good.'  
Malfoy licked him again.  
'Anyone ever done this for you?' He pushed his tongue inside Harry, just the tip, and Harry groaned again.  
'No. Just you.'

Malfoy hummed in satisfaction again and then Harry felt a finger pressing at him. He relaxed and felt Malfoy's slicked finger slip inside. He pushed back against in, closing his eyes as Malfoy worked it inside him, sliding another in and crooking them just so.

It was only another minute before Harry was rocking back against him and Malfoy was pulling him to his knees. Harry felt Malfoy line himself up behind him and he spread his legs, burying his face in his arms. He wanted this. Gods how he wanted this.  
Malfoy slid inside him in one smooth glide and Harry panted against the feel of him.

Malfoy bent over him, reaching for his shoulder and pulling him up so that they were both kneeling, Malfoy's arms around Harry's chest, mouth against his ear. He tilted his hips, sliding out slightly before snapping them back, his cock driving into Harry. Harry cried out at the feeling of it, curling one arm behind his head to grip Malfoy's hair, to hold his mouth against him.

Malfoy pulled out again, grinding himself back in.  
'You're mine,' Malfoy said, pressing into him. 'No one else, Potter,' he growled in his ear.  
Harry gasped. Nodded.  
'Say it,' Malfoy said, his voice hoarse with need.  
'No one else,' Harry groaned, pushing back. 'Only you.'

\-----

Harry woke up as he came, grinding into the mattress with a cry of pleasure. He could still feel Malfoy on him, in him. He could taste and smell Malfoy all around him. He pushed against the bed again, wanting to reach for the man behind him but aware with every passing moment that Malfoy wasn't there. That it hadn't been real.

His clothes against his skin felt rough and wrong. He felt empty. Unfulfilled, where a moment before he had been lost in pleasure he'd never felt before. None of his one-night stands had even come close to how he'd felt under Malfoy, their bodies writhing against each other.

He drew in a deep, shuddering breath and tried to focus on slowing his heartbeat. He opened his eyes and rolled to his back, grimacing at the wetness in his pants. He glanced around the room, the same one he'd just dreamt in, somehow expecting to see Malfoy there with him, but the room was empty. 

He reached for his wand and sent a cleaning charm over himself and then slid his legs over the edge of the bed, a languid satisfaction to his body. He didn't bother putting his shoes back on, walking back through the door and into the small living room. Malfoy, to his surprise, was sitting on the couch, reading a book. He didn't look up as Harry entered, but there was a stiffness about his body that told Harry that Malfoy knew he was there, knew exactly what had just occurred and was trying to pretend nothing had happened.

Harry remembered Malfoy's words. _You're mine._ Suddenly he'd had enough of it. Enough of Malfoy's pretences. He couldn't live one life inside the dream and one life outside of it. Harry sat down next to Malfoy, turning to face him, one leg tucked under himself.  
'What was that?' Harry asked.  
Malfoy paused for a moment, his finger moving to hold his place on the page. Harry noticed his cheeks were slightly flushed and he wondered, for the first time, just how Malfoy experienced the dreams. Had he just come too? The thought sent a curl of heat through Harry and he caught his breath.

Malfoy looked over and he raised an eyebrow. 'Sex, Potter. You seemed familiar enough with it.'  
Harry narrowed his eyes at Malfoy's sarcastic and dismissive tone. He was sick of being pushed away. There was something between them. He knew there was.  
'I know it was sex. Why were we doing it?'

Malfoy shrugged and looked away, closing his book and putting his hand on the arm of the couch, as if to push himself up.  
Harry reached out and gripped Malfoy's arm, holding him in place.  
'No. No walking away this time. What do you want from me?' He paused, trying to put into words what he wanted to say.

'The things you show me - you don't do that with other people.' He didn't make it a question. He knew. _You're the exception to every rule, Potter._ Malfoy scowled, his scar twisting angrily.  
Harry thought of school. The park. Their kids. Their house. The club. Malfoy inserting himself in a hundred ways into Harry's life. Malfoy giving him what he wanted and needed again and again, in a way no one ever had. 'You're making a life for us. The two of us - together.'

Malfoy pulled his arm away from Harry and stood, walking into the kitchen. Harry jumped up and followed him, huffing in frustration.  
'Stop, will you? _Talk_ to me about it.' He knew there was a pleading edge to his voice but he didn't care. This was becoming more and more important to him by the minute, as if the realisation that he wanted this - wanted something with Malfoy - had been hanging over his head, and it had just taken one final moment for it to crash over him, until it was all he could see.  
'It's time for you to go,' Malfoy said, turning to him and gesturing him to the green door.  
'No,' Harry said. 'I want to talk about this.'

'I don't,' Malfoy said. 'Fuck off.'  
Harry felt his anger rise. Why did Malfoy have to be such a fucking shit in real life? In the dreams he was so different. Harry felt his thoughts leap.  
'Draco,' he said, quietly. He saw Malfoy's face twist with surprise, and something else. Something that told Harry he had found what he needed.

'Draco, I like it,' he said. 'I like the life you create for us. I -' He felt his face redden. 'I like what we just did.'  
Malfoy scowled, looking at the ground, but he didn't tell Harry to go again. Harry stepped forward, moving closer. 'Can we maybe try, in the real world, try to see what happens?'

Malfoy jerked his head up and Harry knew he'd just made a fatal mistake.  
'The _real_ world?' he sneered. He took a step forward until he was chest to chest with Harry, his eyes cold as he glared down at him. 'In the real world, Potter, I'm a Death Eater. I'm Marked. I'm an outcast. In the _real_ world, you're the Saviour of us all. Our Golden, Chosen Hero.' He clenched his teeth and Harry could see the anger behind his eyes.

'In the REAL world,' he went on, pushing a finger hard into Harry's chest as his voice rose and his words came faster, 'I make my living twisting people's dreams for money. I trap them in a life that will never exist, and sometimes they die. They die because they won't leave the dream.' He took a deep, shuddering breath. 'I have to live like that - I had to see my mother _die_ like that - because your fucking Ministry won't let me live any other way.' He pushed at Harry again, his voice thick with anger and pain. He didn't even seem to register what he'd just said.

Harry felt shocked, rooted to the spot by the vehemence in his tone and the words he'd just heard. Malfoy's face was dark and certain.  
'In your precious real world, Potter, we're both ruined, and even if we weren't, no one would let us be together.'

Harry shook his head, shaking himself back to life. He refused to give up that easily. If they could have something in the dream, something so good, surely it was worth fighting for.  
'No - my fri- people would understand.' He hesitated, wondering if this was true, before he pushed past the thought. They would _have_ to. 'We could - things could be different. You showed me that. You showed me what things could be like.'  
Malfoy sneered again and it was an ugly, bitter thing. 'Voldermort never existed in the dreams, Potter. Not one of them. He's tainted every reality we have. The dreams will only ever be a fantasy. They can't be real. He made sure of that.'

Malfoy's voice was certain, but Harry refused to believe. Refused to let Voldemort take one more thing from him. He leaned forward, taking Malfoy's arm, willing him to listen. 'He can't. He's dead. I killed him. He can't decide our lives for us anymore.'  
Malfoy pushed him away. 'Exactly. _You_ killed him. You killed him and I supported him. You're Harry Potter and I'm Draco Malfoy and that's all there is. Now fuck off.' He turned away but Harry reached out again and spun him around, anger rising in him.  
'Fuck Harry Potter!' he shouted. 'I don't want to be him.'  
Malfoy's eyes widened in shock. Harry gritted his teeth. He wasn't going to take it back. It was true, he realised. It was the way he'd felt for a long time.

'You don’t have a choice, Potter. It's why you have to Polyjuice to leave the house. It's why you can't do your job. It's why you're falling to pieces and you're only twenty-three. They will never let you forget who you are,' Malfoy said bitterly, waving an arm at the world outside his small apartment. 'Never.'

Harry felt Malfoy's words tug at him. He tried to ignore the brutal truth of them, tried to pull at the thread that might get him somewhere. Might get Malfoy to rethink.  
'My job? Is that what this is about? Because I used to be an Auror? Because I hid the reason I came here from you? I know what happened now. To those people.' He paused, wondering for a moment what he would say next. The words that came out of his mouth surprised him. 'They made their choice. They came here willingly, and if you showed them anything like what you show me, they probably died happy. I don't care about what you do for a living. You help people more than hurt them.' He realised as he said it, that it was true. Malfoy did more good than harm, he was sure of it.

Harry was cut off by Malfoy's laugh, hard and harsh.  
'I don't give a shit if you know what I'm doing, Potter. Your entire investigation from start to end has been a joke.' He stared at Harry, his gaze challenging. 'I've been _inside your mind_ , Potter. Did you really think you could fool me with your piss-poor Obliviation? You forgot to do it half the bloody time and I could pick the other half apart in my sleep. I've known the whole time.'  
He raised an eyebrow at Harry's look of shock. 'Don't look so surprised. You wanted me to know, Potter. A part of you did, anyway - wanted to lay yourself bare before me. You're a better wizard than that - or you used to be.'

Harry felt the confidence leave him, his certainty draining away. Malfoy's face had nothing of the love, the passion, the fun or the life from the dreams. He looked like Harry was a perfect stranger, just another client he was pushing out the door.

'Draco,' Harry said, something inside him clenching in pain. 'Please. Don't do this.'  
Malfoy's eyes softened for the briefest instant, but then he turned around, leaning his hands on the sink, head dropping slightly.  
'Go home,' he said, voice low. 'Go home, destroy that fucking display on your wall and pretend you never came here.'  
Harry sensed that that was the end of it. Malfoy would not unbend.

'So that's it?' Harry asked, pushing all of his disdain into his voice. 'You're just going to give up? Not even try to have something real?'  
Malfoy didn't turn back around, his shoulders stiff and angry.  
Harry glared at him, bitterness flooding through him. He had had enough. Enough of everything.  
'You're still a fucking coward,' he spat, before he wrenched the green door open and stepped through.

\-----

He went straight home, locked his Floo, warded his house and Accoied a bottle of Firewhiskey and the rest of his Gillyweed. He then proceeded to get blindingly drunk while he killed things on his Playstation. He considered at one point, early on, asking someone to come over. Considered maybe he shouldn't be alone with his thoughts right now. But then he thought of the response he'd get from anyone he knew if he tried to explain this, and he gave it up for a bad joke, taking another deep swallow from the bottle.

It was hours later when he passed out on the couch. He woke into daylight glaring through his curtains and he got up for a piss, stumbling through the house until he reached the bathroom and the blessed relief of hangover potion. Then he collected his pouch of tobacco, another bottle of booze and went back to the lounge. If he was drunk, he wouldn't have to remember Malfoy's bullshit.

It worked until the third day. 

On the third day he woke up dreaming of Draco. Dreaming of their place together, of waking up beside him and lazy Sunday breakfasts and apologies made of kisses and coffee. He dreamed of the laughter of children downstairs and it made something hurt deep inside him.  
The dream was hazy around the edges, hard to remember when he woke. It didn't have that same feeling of reality that his dreams of Draco normally had, but it was enough to remind him of how good they felt together. 

He wrestled with himself for twenty minutes before he gave up.

He Apparated to the bar and immediately knew there was something wrong. Barclay was stationed outside the door, dressed in Auror robes. Harry ran towards her and her eyes widened in surprise at the sight of him. He went to push past her and Harry saw the exact moment that she remembered he'd resigned. She held up a hand. 'Sorry, Harry. Active investigation.'  
Harry tried to look past her. 'What's going on? What happened?'  
'I can't give out details on a case, Harry. I'm sorry.'  
Harry could feel his fear rising. Something was wrong. Something was so, so wrong.  
'Fuck the rules,' he said, knowing that his voice was rising but not caring. 'What happened? Where's Malfoy?'

There was the noise of movement inside and then Ron stepped out of the door, the same look of surprise crossing his face as he saw Harry. The next moment it faded into concern as he took in Harry's appearance.  
'Are you okay?' Ron asked. 'Robards told me you'd resigned, but I haven’t been able to get in. Did you ward your Floo?'  
'What happened?' Harry asked, interrupting Ron, aware there was panic in his voice but unable to stop it.  
Ron grinned at him, the smile breaking through his concern. It was a broad smile that he seemed unable to contain.  
'We got the fucker!'

Harry looked at him, unable to comprehend the words.  
'What do you mean? Got who?'  
'Malfoy,' Ron said, putting his arm around Harry's shoulder and leading him off to one side. Harry wanted to shrug him off - wanted to shake him and shout at him until he started explaining what was going on. Ron seemed oblivious, that proud smile still on his face.  
'We arrested him yesterday. Inside is just the evidence team.'

Harry shook his head, the panic starting to rise again, battling with his confusion. This didn't make sense. None of this made sense. Malfoy had known what they were doing. Had got around all of them. He'd told Harry he had. He couldn't be -  
'How?' Harry demanded. 'What happened?'

Ron let go and turned to face him properly. 'Are you okay, Harry? You look terrible. Like, really bad. And you - have you been drinking?'  
'I'm fine,' Harry snapped. 'What the fuck happened to Draco?'  
Ron's eyes widened at Harry's use of Malfoy's first name, and then a complicated expression flitted across his face.

'What do you mean 'Draco'?' Ron asked. 'That was just part of your cover, wasn't it? Those notes you made about him?'  
'What are you talking about?' Harry said, frustration running through him. None of this made sense.  
'I found your board,' Ron said. 'In your room.' Harry felt sick understanding flow through him, guilt and fear flooding him.  
Ron must have mistaken the expression on his face for anger, because he began to explain quickly.

'I wasn't trying to pry, but I came by a few days ago, and you were gone again. I've been worried about you,' he said, his voice sounding defensive. 'We all have. And well, there was a disturbance in your room, and I was afraid maybe something -' he paused, clearing his throat and for just a second, Harry remembered the dark days, the days after the war, after he'd died, where he'd been lost in his head and unable to find the way out.  
The thought was overtaken by his overwhelming need to know where Draco was.

'Your case board,' Ron said, face lighting up, 'Bloody brilliant, mate. There was easily enough there to arrest him - so much evidence. We barely need what we can find at the bar. You did a great job. Robards is impressed, too.'  
He reached out to clap Harry on the shoulder, but Harry flinched away.

'Where is he?' Harry asked, mind racing, trying to figure out what he could do to stop this. Ron's next words turned that to ashes.  
'Azkaban.' There was a cold satisfaction in his tone. 'Pending trial, but that will be an in-and-out. Convicted Death Eater who couldn't keep his nose clean. He'll get life this time.'

Harry felt the words echo through his mind. _He'll get life this time_. He felt nausea swirl and rise in him and he fell to his knees, vomiting into the gutter.

\-----

He spent a lot of time dreaming. In and out of consciousness. Sometimes he was at St. Mungo's, sometimes at home. Once, he thought he recognised the Burrow. When he could get whisky, or Gillyweed, they helped to dull everything for a while, make it all go away. Even the dreams stopped on those nights - faded, washed out things that they were. Sometimes he wondered if it was a blessing to forget Draco's touch, to forget the faces of his children. But he was watched more and more, and oblivion became harder to find. 

He was told the date every day, an attempt to keep him present, apparently, to ground him in reality. And so he knew that it was two and a half months after Draco was arrested when he felt it - a touch at the edge of his mind. A whisper into the darkness. He curled away from it at first. It had been a long time - so long - since he had wanted contact, reassurance, anything but the spiral of despair and pain. 

But the words teased at him, pulled him from the guilt and shame he'd layered himself with.  
'You're a very hard man to find, Potter.'  
Harry could feel every nerve in his body begin to come back to life at the sound of that familiar voice, the one he'd been aching to hear. He wanted to cry and shout and curl up into a ball. Pain ricocheted through him. No. Draco was gone. Draco had been taken from him. This was just the booze talking again. He'd been fooled so many times before, woken from dreams that were just wisps of wanting, a sick parody of what he needed.

'Draco?' he called anyway, unable to help himself, spinning around in the darkness.  
A shape started to solidify before him, a familiar figure, a familiar room. Harry felt his heart pound in his chest and he caught his breath with aching hope.  
'Hello, love,' Draco said, silver eyes shining.  
Harry rushed forward as the room stabilised, throwing his arms around Draco. He felt Draco embrace him hard in turn and he buried his face in Draco's neck, breathing in the scent of him. He could feel the emotion surging in him, months of pain and regret, anger and fear. He felt tears rise in his eyes and he let them fall, gasping into Draco's skin. Draco just held him tighter, shushing him gently. Slowly, inch by inch, Harry could feel the loss begin to bleed away.

He focussed just on Draco - on the feel of him in his arms, the heaviness of his body, the strength of his grip. Finally, after what felt like an age, he pulled back slightly, looking at Draco, drinking in his clear grey eyes, the smile on his lips.

Harry reached up, tracing his fingertips down Draco's cheek.  
'Is this real?' he asked, voice cracking.  
Draco raised an eyebrow, his smile quirking.  
'Does it matter?'

Harry didn't even have to think. He shook his head and pulled Draco's mouth to his.

**Author's Note:**

> Please do let me know what you think. I'm very proud of this one.
> 
> I promise I'll reply to every comment after reveals  
> x


End file.
